Herras, Ma. Fatima M. ABE 2-5 Writing Task No.

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Critical Analysis Paper

In

Afro-Asian Literature

Submitted to: Prof. Jose V. Clutario

I. Introduction

I chose to make a critical analysis of the film Beyond Borders. It is a story about the life
of a woman that is about to turn upside down when she meets the humanitarian Dr. Callahan.
Angelina Jolie stars as Sarah Jordan, an American socialite living in England and married to
Henry Beauford, the son of a wealthy British industrialist. While attending a charity event
engaged by her husband’s father, she witnesses the intrusion of Dr. Nick Callahan where he
brings and shows up a starving Ethiopian boy named Jojo and makes a fiery plea to the
audience on behalf of the poverty-stricken children under his care. He accuses people as they
let kids like him starve to death. Nick has caught the attention of Sarah and his cause, she
decides to leave her job at an art gallery in order to go to Ethiopia to work with Dr. Nick in his
efforts to aid the famished people in there.

As Sarah travels to the camp where Nick and the rest of his team people stays, she sees
a malnourished Ethiopian baby and her severely bleeding mother that is almost dying in the
middle of the desert. She stops the truck, gets them and brings them with her to the camp to
ask for Nick’s help. Sarah gets along with everyone else except for Nick. They were able to save
the life of the baby but not its mother. Sarah goes back home in England to her family as she
has done with her mission aiding the people and children under Nick’s care by bringing relief
good, medicines etc.

Sarah is back home in England and everything is going as it used to be except that she
and her husband Henry had a divorce. They still live together for the sake of their son Jimmy.
She no longer works at an art gallery and after she travels to Ethiopia, Sarah now works for
humanitarian and human rights organization, and eventually works for the UNHCR ( United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and acts as a regional representative for United
Kingdom.

Sarah becomes determined to work again with Dr. Nick Callahan when Elliot, one of the
members of Nick’s aiding team, calls her for a help. Sarah decides to leave her family again to
be with Dr. Callahan who is now based in Cambodia. The two reunite and start to get along
with each other. They both start to realize having feelings for each other. As days pass, the two
realize that they can’t be together because they have their own lives. Sarah has a family while
Nick has duties and responsibilities for helping the need.

One day, Sarah received a letter regarding Nick, saying he’s running some sort of camp
in Chechnya but has been captured and made a prisoner of war. She is very worried. Sarah
asks her sister for help and wants to find Nick. She then decides to go and find Nick in
Chechnya. She witnesses some horrible happening but it only made her more eager to find and
rescue Nick.

Sarah finds the imprisoned Nick and rescues him. Sarah tells him that she has a
daughter with him. As they were fleeing, the gunmen found out their track. Nick, being unable
to run fast enough because of being weak, tried to save Sarah by running away. He is shot in
the back by the gunmen. She runs away but accidentally steps on a land mine. She has no
choice but to let it explode and so it happens and she dies. Nick was able to survive the
gunshot and the explosion. The last scene of the film shows that Nick goes to Sarah’s home
back in England to see their daughter playing piano the same thing he saw Sarah playing piano
when she was in Ethiopia.
II. Problem

The story is pretty nice and actually, the film is dedicated to all the relief workers and
the millions of people who are victims of war and persecution. Besides their love conflict, I have
noticed another big problem, child hunger. When you see the movie, you would probably feel
sympathetic towards Jojo, the little boy who was showed in front of many people by Dr. Nick
Callahan. Especially when you see Angelina Jolie felt pity when she saw the baby and his
mother lying in the middle of the desert, almost dying. Sad to say, but that is actually the
reality even today.

According to the World Food Programme, the food assistance branch with reference to
the United Nations and the world's largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and
promoting food security, Ethiopia loses around 16.5 percent of its GDP each year to the long-
term effects of child malnutrition. That's just one of the statistics to emerge from "The Cost of
Hunger in Africa" study which measures the economic impact of malnutrition in 12 different
countries. Ethiopia is the third country so far to publish its findings.

The persistence of hunger in a world of plenty is the most profound moral conflict of our
age. Nearly 800 million people in the developing world (20 percent of the total population) are
chronically undernourished. At least 2 million suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies. But
since the mid-1970s the world has produced enough food to provide everyone with a minimally
adequate diet.

Child hunger is one of the biggest problems Ethiopia faces but not only the country of
Ethiopia, not only the neighbor countries of Ethiopia but also other countries face the same
major problem.

When we talk about child hunger, the first thing that comes into your mind are the
children that live in the continent of Africa as Africa is not only famous for its deserts and
savannah, but also the child starvation.

I’ve just read a blog from Bill Gates about his travel to Africa and how he would often
meet children in the villages and he would guess their ages. He says that he was shocked to
find out that how often he guessed wrong. He guessed their ages based on how tall they were.
This is an example of the big terrible impact of malnutrition in Africa. This is also known as
stunting. According to the borgenproject.org, child stunting is a condition that is defined as
height for age below the fifth percentile on a reference growth curve. If, within a given
population, substantially more than 5% of an identified child population have heights that are
lower than the curve, then it is likely that said population would have a higher-than-expected
prevalence of stunting. It measures the nutritional status of children. It is an important indicator
of the prevalence of malnutrition or other nutrition-related disorders among an identified
population in a given region or area.

These children are rather not getting enough food to eat. Stunting has a big effect on a
child’s body. It affects the height and weight of a child. It also has an impact on brain
development. Of course, the brain also needs food to keep in command to other parts of the
body. Malnutrition has a big part for the cause of sapping a country’s strength thus, makes the
entire nation trapped in poverty. But what causes hunger in Africa?

Climate change is one of the reasons. Africa mostly suffers from global warming due to
its position in the globe. There are droughts, biodiversity loss and increase in temperatures
because of global warming, poor air quality and many more. Lots of human, natural, material
and financial resources are being lost to wars and recurring social unrest. Ethnic and religious
diversity and a large portion of uneducated inhabitants make the continent susceptible to civil
conflicts often instigated by incessant struggle for natural resources. Africa’s rich endowments
in oil deposits, gold, diamond, fertile soils, water resources, tropical forests, have turned the
continent into a political land mine with both external and internal interests shaping the
continents struggle for power.

The effects of childhood malnutrition last a lifetime, and even into succeeding
generations. Malnutrition is a factor in one-third of the 13 million annual deaths of children
under five years old. The number of malnourished children under five in the developing world
rose from 168 million in 1975 to 184 million in 1990, but fell as a share of all developing-
country children from 42 to 34 percent. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are less easily noticed,
but they can severely retard the growth and mental development of children. The 1990 World
Summit for Children pledged to halve malnutrition among children under five by the year 2000.
Progress is uneven, but generally encouraging.
 Elderly people are disproportionately vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition in both
industrial and developing countries. Elderly populations are growing everywhere as people live
longer, and with changing lifestyles and family structures, the elderly in many countries are
receiving less care from the family. Strategies to care for the increasing number of aged over
the next 25 years need to be developed.
III. Discussion

The nature of education introduced by colonialists prepares people for white collar
jobs.71%of Africans are youth, aged under-25 years. Majority of these still attend school. In
Uganda, agriculture is used as punishment in schools where students that misbehave are made
to dig the whole day and even during holidays in school gardens. This makes young people
develop a very negative mentality about agriculture. Very few young people pursue agriculture
and rural development careers. As such, agriculture is left to old persons with little knowledge
about agronomic practices. In addition, young people who are disinterested in agriculture eat
more food than any other age category.

Across the globe, conflicts consistently disrupt farming and food production. Fighting
also forces millions of people to flee their homes, leading to hunger emergencies as the
displaced find themselves without the means to feed themselves. The conflict in Syria is a
recent example.

In war, food sometimes becomes a weapon. Soldiers will starve opponents into
submission by seizing or destroying food and livestock and systematically wrecking local
markets. Fields are often mined and water wells contaminated, forcing farmers to abandon their
land.

Ongoing conflict in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo has contributed
significantly to the level of hunger in the two countries. By comparison, hunger is on the retreat
in more peaceful parts of Africa such as Ghana and Rwanda.

Other causes include population explosion, poor communication infrastructure (lack of

access to markets, poor transport infrastructure so that food can be transported from regions of
plenty to famine-stricken areas); poor food preparation and eating habits, laziness, alcoholism,
poor farming methods, population explosion, natural calamities, ignorance and lack of
planning.

Food wastage is also a problem. One third of all food produced (1.3 billion tons) is never
consumed. This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security
in a world where one in 8 is hungry.
 Producing this food also uses up precious natural resources that we need to feed the
planet. Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent
to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River. Producing this food also adds 3.3 billion tons of
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, with consequences for the climate and, ultimately, for
food production.

Racial discrimination and competition between ethnic groups have caused hunger,
malnutrition, and resource deprivation for black populations in South Africa and the Americas,
Indians in Latin America, Kurds in Iraq, and Tamils in Sri Lanka, to name just a few. While the
problems are immense and complicated, some countries have triumphed over racial differences.
Zimbabwe has achieved social integration without substantial racial strife, offering a model for
achieving multiracial democracy and reduced hunger in nearby South Africa.

While the problems are immense and complicated, some countries have triumphed over
racial differences. Zimbabwe has achieved social integration without substantial racial strife,
offering a model for achieving multiracial democracy and reduced hunger in nearby South
Africa.
IV. Conclusion

How do we end child hunger? I mean, this problem has been existing before I was born.
A lot of things happened to different countries, different politicians, different world leaders etc,
but look, this starvation still exists. Couldn’t they do something? They have the money. They
have the people. They have the fame. They have the power. They have the manipulation and
are able to control of what is going around.

I know there are a lot of people out there who do help those who are in need. But it is
not enough. Some just lose hope and give up because of too much poverty and any other
financial problems, even communication problems. They think that some things are not enough
and cannot give sufficient amount of supply to provide those who are poor and needy. Maybe I
would feel the same the way too if I was in their situation. You know, feeling like giving up. The
doubts are keeping on growing inside but we need to keep up somehow. We need to get up. All
it takes is someone to take a step forward and make a stand. I, myself, definitely cannot do this
on my own. I would definitely need a big help.

I am merely a student for now. But that does not mean I cannot do anything to help
those who are in need. In fact, I can do such things if I really want to. I can study way harder
than I usually do. Be persevering. Strive hard. Graduate and have a degree. Have a decent job.
Do my part and contribute in my society as I am a human being. If I would have the chance to
make it bigger, then I would go for it. Volunteer at world organizations, those who help the
needy in the poorest of the poorest countries and other places in planet Earth.

As of now, I currently belong in a youth organization here in our barangay. Me and my

co-youth council members aim is to help the other youth in different ways which could
applicable for their own future purposes. We propose projects like basketball league game,
battle of the bands, summer jobs and many more. I know it’s not that big but at least we can
help them through different other ways.
 The world community has both the knowledge and the resources to eliminate hunger.
Putting these tools to work requires us to ground our choices–small and large, individual and
collective, political and economic in ethical values, including empowerment and justice,
stewardship of common resources for the common good, and affirmation of diversity.

Food for Life is the world’s largest food relief organization and their aim is to serve
millions of plant-based meal daily. In its efforts to eradicate world hunger, the organization
trains its volunteers to be selfless, humble, compassionate and broad minded enough to
understand the needs and concerns of the world they live in.

In fact, Food for Life volunteers often risk their own lives to help those in need.
Throughout the fighting in Grozny, Chechnya, for example, Food for Life volunteers cooked and
served hot vegan meals to desperate civilians in the war-torn city. More than one million meals
were served during the 20-month conflict.

It is the responsibility of every human being on the planet to take action to eradicate
malnutrition, which is killing upwards of 12 million children every year. This position, long held
by many leading vegetarians, was confirmed by the United Nations 1989 Convention on the
Rights of the Child.