By Vannak Anan Prum, told to Ben & Jocelyn Pederick and translated by Lim Sophorn (Seven Stories Press)
ISBN: 978-1-6098-0602-6 (HB/Digital edition)
This book made me furiously angry, but that’s good because it was supposed to. So as we reel at contemporary news headlines from locales as diverse as Saudi Arabian construction sites to Scottish fishing boats and UK care homes let’s dedicate this International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition to ponder again how capitalism got us here and what we will do next…
Despite years of shocking scoops, excellent exposés and countless in-depth news reports, far too many first world citizens seem – or choose to be – blissfully unaware that human slavery still thrives.
In fact, the commercial practise of organised enforced and unpaid labour props up a vast number of businesses and industries, from migrants and homeless people used as domestic beasts of burden to gangs masquerading as service, telemarketing, construction or hospitality companies using shady contracts and extortion to man their enterprises. Young hopefuls are trafficked into a global sex market and entire village populations are captured or conned and compelled to till fields or man fishing boats for “entrepreneurs” no better than racketeers.
At the root of all this appalling exploitation and upheaval is one unchanging factor: a desperate need by the downtrodden to escape overwhelming poverty.
This breathtakingly low key, matter-of-fact tale is the testimony in cartoon form of Cambodian Vannak Anan Prum who went looking for work to pay for his pregnant wife’s medical care and was gone for years…
Bracketed by a fact-filled and frankly nightmare-inducing Foreword from activist and cartoon journalist Anne Elizabeth Moore (Unmarketable, Body Horror, Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, and Trafficking), an equally sobering Introduction by Minky Worden – Director of Global Initiatives for Human Rights Watch – and a laudatory appreciation and call to arms by Kevin Bales (Professor of Contemporary Slavery and Research Director at the Rights Lab: University of Nottingham) in his Afterword, a compelling human-scaled odyssey unfolds in these pages.
Rendered with the gently seductive warmth and deceptively comfortable lushness of a Ladybird early reader book, this saga of endurance and survival against the cruellest of fates begins with a ‘Prologue’ as a stranger enters a Cambodian village…
Vannak Anan Prum started life ‘Drawing in the Dirt’. He had been born the year the Vietnamese beat the Khmer Rouge, but his early life was still one of hardship, privation and family abuse. Barely more than a boy, he fled his home seeking ‘Adventure’, becoming first a soldier, then a monk and finally an artisan sculptor toiling in a workshop making tourist trinkets and statues. His constant hunt for work led him to farming where he met the girl who became ‘My Wife’. When she fell pregnant, he had to make more money to pay for her hospital care, so with village friend Rus Vannak followed a promising lead to Thailand and contacted ‘Moto & the Middleman’. After helping them in ‘Crossing the Border’ their new friends soon changed from chummy helpers to sinister guards…
Apparently, the great secret to successful slave-taking is convincing victims that the police, army and authorities are ruthless and will punish harshly undocumented illegals and economic migrants: constantly dangling hope of good pay and promises of eventual freedom to keep their dupes quiescent. For Vannak and Rus ‘The Writing on the Wall’ was a clear but anticlimactic moment and – after relatively painless incarceration – they were shipped onto facilities ship ‘The Took Tho’. This seedy vessel serviced a vast fleet of illegal fishing boats, pirating catches in other nations’ waters and manned by hundreds of men who only wanted to better themselves. Most never saw land again once they were taken…
One such was ‘The Old Man’ whose fate led to Vannak being transferred to fishing factory ship ‘The Took Oh’. Eventually, crushing routine took hold, only barely broken by what happens to ‘Rus’…
‘Life on the Boat’ ruled Vannak’s world and any number of candidates for ‘The Deadliest Job’ were gratefully handled before the new man’s status was slightly elevated. After he started idly tattooing himself with makeshift tools, his ‘Writing on the Skin’ led to the others wanting such decoration – and paying him for it. His artistic gifts were useless when the ship was chased by the Indonesian navy, resulting in ‘Fire at Sea’ and Vannak being traded to ‘The New Boat’…
Fresh horrors awaited there: murder, beatings and the shocking fate of ‘Two Guys’ from Thailand, but there were also more serene moments with ‘My Friend K’Nack’. Adding to alternating dire tedium and frantic hardship, ‘Storms at Sea’ and consequent becalmed periods made ‘Days Stretch Out’…
At last, after the craft unexpectedly neared land, a chance came for ‘Escape’. With Thai compatriot Chaya, Vannak chanced everything on ‘The Swim’ to an unknown jungle beach and kept going. Once again hope quickly gave way to despair. In ‘The Monkeys and the Man Waiting for Us’ an idyllic pause and aid of helpful locals brought the escapees to ‘Police and the Chinese Man’… who promptly sold them both to plantation owner ‘Crazy Boss’…
More months of slavery in what eventually turned out to be Malaysia followed, but again Vannak’s artistic skills proved invaluable and he made enough to obtain ‘The Phone’. Contact with the outside world made, he prepared for rescue, but when drunken partying dissolved into ‘The Fight’ Vannak and “co-worker” Theara were wounded by machetes and dumped into the custody of the local cops. At least they (grudgingly) got them to ‘Hospital’…
And that’s where the real injustices started piling up as the victims suffered ‘Yo-Yo Justice’. Although Theara was soon reclaimed by his family, illegal worker Vannak was arrested. However, in ‘Prison’ he was interviewed by German NGO worker Manfred Hornung who began the complex and convoluted process of freeing the abducted and enslaved artist.
Sadly, that took months, and was perpetually hampered by police interference and the revelation of just who – and how prestigious and influential – Crazy Boss was…
It was still a long, torturous ordeal before the LICADHO (Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights) could ferry the relieved and apprehensive Vannak ‘Home’ again…
This crushingly sedate, oppressively action-deprived story is an astounding and remarkable testament to sheer will-to-survive, but by no measure does it lack power, merit or moment. Life simply isn’t a 3-act summer blockbuster with exploding helicopters, sexy hotties and Mikado-esque just deserts doled out to the apparently endless chain of truly evil, corrupt bastards entrenched at every stage of this century’s slavery system, all with hands out and blind eyes turned to the plight of those they’re supposed to protect and serve.
In actual fact, the only thing they really fear is exposure, and that began once Vannak – still desperately seeking a means to earn a living – started drawing his five years a slave: awful life-changing experiences gathered in these strips. The comics were seen by filmmakers Ben & Jocelyn Pederick and one of the results and repercussions was this book…
As seen in ‘Epilogue’, there is more to come…
The almost incomprehensible story of a quietly indomitable man who turned survival into a waiting game and patience into his weapon, The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea is a book everyone should read and every exploiter should dread.
Text and images © 2018 Vannak Anan Prum. Foreword © 2018 Anne Elizabeth Moore. Introduction © 2018 Minky Worden. Afterword © 2018 Kevin Bales. All rights reserved.