BY ALLEN MYERS

PHNOM PENH — A showing of John Pilger’s documentary film The New Rulers of the World drew a crowd of more than 200 people on the evening of July 24.

The showing, sponsored by the Foreign Journalists Club of Cambodia, was introduced by Rosanna Barbero, the director of Womyn’s Agenda for Change, an NGO that helps working women organise against their exploitation.

Barbero pointed out that Pilger’s documentary provides information that is almost never covered by the establishment media. A film like this was important so that we learn about the changes going on in the world economy before it is too late to do anything about them.

This point is particularly relevant in Cambodia, where there are still widespread illusions about the supposed benefits of capitalist globalisation.

The New Rulers of the World focuses primarily on Indonesia, but it would not be difficult for most Cambodians to see the similarities between the garment industries of the two countries and the neo-liberal agendas being pursued at the behest of international financial institutions.

A majority of the audience were expatriates, but there were also many Cambodian viewers, including some students who had journeyed in from outlying provinces just to see the film.

Womyn’s Agenda for change is preparing a Khmer-language translation of The New Rulers of the World to make it more widely accessible to Cambodians.

From Green Left Weekly, August 14, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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