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Article Summary by Anthony L.
Sharkwater, “works to designate the shark fin industry as illicit, placing shark fishers on the margins of ethical and social life. Shewry uses the film to display the corruption in the pacific. She refers to a study done on 21 species of sharks, 16 of which are globally threatened. The movie shows the process of lining their boats with hundreds of feet of lines with hooks. Sharks just swimming along are caught in this horrible nightmare, but they’re not the only victims. The film showed sea turtles, dolphins, and whales are also unintentionally massacred by these disgusting means of “fishing.” But why are they killing sharks? They want their fins. Shewry notes that the movie shows people catching a shark, cutting the fin off, then dumping the carcass into the sea. It is now, in which Shewry makes her main argument; capitalism. Open market capitalism has created this motivation for the finning of sharks. Fins worth 80 cents in Guatemala are worth over $200 in Asia. Shewry discusses the idea of Capitalism. She claims it fosters only a desire for wealth at any and all costs. This desire drives the “fishermen” to make a living.
She then points to a smaller argument in which she calls the “sea of abandonment.” She begins this argument referring to scholar, Daniel Heller Roazen and his comparison to these shark poachers as pirates. Many countries have banned this form of shark fishing and it is now considered illicit, or illegal. So in a similar way to the pirate, the poacher is a, “criminal figure of the sea who breaks with legitimate forms of social and economic life.” She then connects it to her idea of abandonment. She quotes the narrator of Sharkwater, “Everyone wanted to save pandas, elephants, and bears. And the world was afraid of sharks?” People know this activity is illegal, but no one is caring. There is a small number of activists and it is a “lonely pathway” to create a poacher-free sea for sharks.
Shewry then discusses a novel called Melal: The Novel of the Pacific. It is a fiction novel discussing the life of a protagonist who is in the Marshall Islands for US military reasons. This novel includes the same issue, but in a broader sense encompasses the illicit fishing of all sea animals. This time the motivation for the illicit fishing is political. “Indigenous Politics,” as Shewry explains stems from the Marshallese people frustrated with the US military occupation on their island. The protagonist meets a man who didn’t really care about the money, but rather opposing American ideas. The US officials tried to voice their concerns for this unethical practice and the Marshallese then used that to go out of their way to increase the illicit fishing just for political reasons against the US. Shewry also notes the hypocrisy in the cries of the US officials who call for these crimes to stop, yet they are only on the island to “develop infrastructures of war.”
Lastly, Shewry links this novel to her main argument as mentioned earlier. It all goes back to capitalism. In a capitalistic society, while the good part that many argue, is that it allows for one to “make a living,” whatever way possible, it often will bring those who have a tough time making money, to do whatever they can for money. After all, “capital” is in the name. It creates a society in desire for money. With how valuable these sea creatures can be, it causes people to resort so such heinous ways of making money. That in the end, is Shewry’s main argument.
Shewry, Teresa. "Sea Of Secrets: Imagining Illicit Fishing In Robert Barclay’S Meļaļ And Rob Stewart’S Sharkwater." Journal Of Postcolonial Writing 49.1 (2013): 47-59. Humanities International Complete. Web. 26 Feb. 2016
