Reviewed by BarbTX
I just finished LITTLE BEE. It is narrated in the voice of a 16 year old Nigerian refugee turned illegal immigrant in the U.K. She was in a refugee detainment center and another girl at the center convinced a guard to look the other way. She left without permission with some other girls. Since she had no papers, once she was on the outside of the razor wired fence, she became one of many illegals trying to keep a low profile so as not to be picked up. Although there was no guarantee she would have been given genuine refugee status, the fact she left the way she did put her at odds with the law. Kind of like she had crossed the Rubicon, I guess. Her case would certainly not been looked upon with favor after she took the step to leave on her own.
A strong theme of the book, in addition to that of the plight of the refugee/immigrant, is the effects of the discovery of oil on the narrator’s former village site. The author uses the brutality of the “soldiers” and others hired by the oil companies to eliminate those who stand in the way of oil company profits as part of his theme. Searching on Google, I found he was dead on.
Here is a link to one site dealing with oil in Nigeria:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/86/nigeria-and-oil There are many, many more sites/images.
I have read about the devastation brought upon the peoples of Brazil’s Amazon region, but have not read much about Nigeria/oil in the past. I looked for, but could not find, an article with a photo of an indigenous woman standing in oil above her ankles in a oil soaked cassava field in the Amazonian rain forest when I searched today.
The article indicated the woman’s hope that the BP oil spill in the U.S. would bring attention to what is happening to villagers throughout her region. The premise of the article was people would see what had happened in the gulf of Mexico and then begin to realize how much worse it is (on going/continuous) in the less developed countries which have very “small” voices/resources compared to a country such as the U.S.
While we have the disaster(s) created by BP and cohorts, these people in Nigeria/Amazon are seeing their countries destroyed by Chevron and Shell as well. It was brought home to me in “googling around” that BP is spending an awful lot of money in positive ADVERTISEMENTS to assure us they are the good guys. Oil companies are not so inclined to clean up their image or disasters in regions where the locals have no $/power/voice.
Instead of having a “happy ending,” LITTLE BEE will bring up questions that really have no immediate answer/resolution. As long as super corporations are willing to allow a certain death rate to people and environment in order to reap huge profits, it is unlikely anything will change.
Here is a photo of a small patch of the rain forest in Ecuador:
http://revista-amauta.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/oil-ecuador-rainforest.jpg
I would definitely recommend LITTLE BEE because it is a very powerful book. Initially, I did not think it was a very deep book, but I changed my mind. It was a jumping off point to many questions such as:
Where we are going in our global economy?
How much do we want to pay?
How much are we willling to lose?
It would be a great book discussion subject if people are interested in discussing troubling political, ethical, global issues. These are really important issues to think about because we are going through changes now ( BP, our example for our part of the world) which will determine who and what survives. I don’t think Darwin had oil/coal/natural gas companies in mind when he discussed “survival of the fittest,” but perhaps only the strongest (and luckiest) pelicans, turtles, people, etc. will be able to survive the mass destruction of many parts of our world.
I did not see this program when it aired on CNN June 30th. However, this page has a short video which would, at least partially, make the case Little BEE was a true refugee.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/06/29/nigeria.oil/index.html?iref=allsearch
Fran, I think I may be ready for a little Garrison Keillor myself.
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