The award-winning South African film Sons of the Sea explores the moral universe of forced choices through the narrative of Mikhail and Gabriel, two brothers from Kalk Bay.
Sons of the Sea explores the complexities of poaching, which is often not simply a choice between legality and criminality, but between starving or notGabriel, played by Roberto Kyle, and Mikhail, played by Marlon Swarts, find two bags of abalone on the beach. Picture: SUPPLIED
When a foreigner dies in the hotel where he works, Gabriel finds a stash of dried and packaged abalone, an amount that represents a fortune if it can be sold successfully. The brothers steal the valuable marine snails, setting off the well-known crime movie spiral into uncontrolled events. A number of coastal communities were left disappointed by the fishing rights processes that they had been relying on to reverse a century and more of colonial and apartheid exclusion from the formal fishing sector. When it became clear to these communities that they would not gain access to fishing resources, many took to “protest fishing”. This opened the gap for more intentionally criminal elements.
What I argue — in line with other work on different kinds of illegal resource extraction — is that the decision to poach is not a decision, but a destination on a journey that is often fraught with loss and exclusion. Many divers have died in rough seas or when trying to evade law enforcement. Unless you are the kingpin or the merchant, poaching is a dangerous choice which could see you dead, in jail or embroiled in gangsterism.
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