Film Journal: The riot of maverick pigs
In my youth, I got to know “a maverick pig”, the late Chinese writer and critic Wang Xiaobo who mocked himself as the protagonist of his namesake short story.
The story depicts a rebellious hog’s escape from his preset destiny of growing meat for human consumption to become a free wild boar.
“I have never seen in my forty years of life anyone who disregard his pre-arranged life like this pig,” Wang Xiaobo wrote. “On the contrary, I’ve seen many people who want to set up other people’s lives, and those who bear with these arrangements without a protest. For this reason, I always think of this maverick pig.”
Now, fifteen years after Wang’s decease, this documentary Pig Business recalls my memories of this special pig. I see how Wang Xiaobo’s words still resonate with many issues in today’s homogeneous globalization.
The film investigates the interplays behind the international giant meat companies, banking systems and politics. The closely knitted interest networks of syndicates monopolize the market, edge small farmers out of livelihood, pollute air, water and land, and abuse animal welfare.
In other words, our lives are essentially manipulated by a small bunch of fat cats, or an ‘establishment’ one may call it. We are no better than those pathetic hogs who spend their entire life with a pre-set agenda and purpose.
However, the availability of information can shine light on our unconsciousness and prompt us to defy against these arrangements imposed against our will, just as this documentary and its related campaign have served the purpose.
I am encouraged by these individuals, small people as they are, who stand out and cry out to protect their homeland, livelihood and animal rights from the manipulation of those powerful and titanic industrial companies and governments.
Japanese writer Haruki Murakami used to describe this kind of defiance as an egg breaks against a hard and high wall.
” To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength,” he said at the Jerusalem Prize acceptance in 2009, as the media reported. ”We must not let the system control us — create who we are.”
The rise of a civic society is marked by numerous individuals who are equipped with knowledge and awareness and willing to stand out from the silent swinery and venture into the unchartered land of freedom.
In this process, media agencies, journalists and intellectuals should all take up their social responsibility to inform and educate the general public, initiate debates, and watch out for wrongdoings. Just as this documentary’s crew and Wang Xiaobo did.
With the push of so many individuals, the high and hard wall may one day collapse. Our human beings, the pigs, and other animals alike may be freed from this “animal farm” where our hearts are blinded by greed, cruelty, ignorance and indifference to the equal values of life of all creatures and to the nature itself.
cindyxuxin 