The other day, I was reading the paper and came across an op-ed imploring holiday shoppers to forgo diamonds mined in Zimbabwe. The author says that we should reject diamonds from Zimbabwe because they could have been mined in areas under the control of rebel groups who engage in torture and use child labor to control diamond production. So the author thinks that prior to purchasing diamonds, we should ask jewelers of the diamond's origin and refuse to buy it if it's from Zimbabwe. Sure. Like that's going to happen. Society cares more about diamonds and symbolizing wealth more than African people a continent away.
I'm against diamonds for a host of reasons. I recently finished reading Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones by Greg Campbell. The production of diamonds is horrifying and disgusting, and the United States is the largest diamond consumer in the world. This is what our consumption supports: civil war, death, torture.
The book traces diamond mining in the 1990s in Sierra Leone and how diamond profits fuels a bloody civil war. To control the diamond mines, production, and profits, rebel groups such as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) kill, rape, and torture the people in Sierra Leone. The most common way the RUF induces terror and asserts control over the civilians is amputation- usually the arms, but also lips, ears, breasts, and tongues.
Capturing a diamond mine is easy: the RUF show up at a mine with rifles and forces the workers to hand over the diamonds. Powerless workers comply because the only other option is death. The RUF then uses its diamond profits to buy more guns and for retirement funds. Oh, and diamond profits have also been linked to the funding of terrorist attacks, most notably the September 11th attacks on the US.
Efforts to combat illegitimate diamond mining have induced peacekeeping missions by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, as well as export controls like the Clean Diamond Act and the Kimberley Process. However, diamond smuggling is so rampant and quite simple that one can never be sure that so-called conflict free diamonds are truly conflict free. You will never know if your diamond is legitimately mined or a result of brutality, death, and mutiliation.
Diamond mining is literally back breaking work, and even diamonds that are legitimately produced are mined under harsh labor conditions. Workers work from sunrise to sunset, and there are no lunch breaks or days off. They earn 2 cups of rice and the equivalent of 50 cents per day. Our society bemoans sweat shops and Wal Mart, but there is a lack of comparable anger over the horrifying conditions of diamond mining. Apparently, cheaply made clothes violate human rights, but diamonds do not.
Diamonds have come to symbolize love and commitment, and whenever I see them, I always wonder how many Africans died for them. I am truly ashamed that our consumerist society supports terror, death, and mutilation. Either we don't know it, or we choose to ignore this fact.
I'm against diamonds for a host of reasons. I recently finished reading Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones by Greg Campbell. The production of diamonds is horrifying and disgusting, and the United States is the largest diamond consumer in the world. This is what our consumption supports: civil war, death, torture.
The book traces diamond mining in the 1990s in Sierra Leone and how diamond profits fuels a bloody civil war. To control the diamond mines, production, and profits, rebel groups such as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) kill, rape, and torture the people in Sierra Leone. The most common way the RUF induces terror and asserts control over the civilians is amputation- usually the arms, but also lips, ears, breasts, and tongues.
Capturing a diamond mine is easy: the RUF show up at a mine with rifles and forces the workers to hand over the diamonds. Powerless workers comply because the only other option is death. The RUF then uses its diamond profits to buy more guns and for retirement funds. Oh, and diamond profits have also been linked to the funding of terrorist attacks, most notably the September 11th attacks on the US.
Efforts to combat illegitimate diamond mining have induced peacekeeping missions by the United Nations and the Sierra Leone government, as well as export controls like the Clean Diamond Act and the Kimberley Process. However, diamond smuggling is so rampant and quite simple that one can never be sure that so-called conflict free diamonds are truly conflict free. You will never know if your diamond is legitimately mined or a result of brutality, death, and mutiliation.
Diamond mining is literally back breaking work, and even diamonds that are legitimately produced are mined under harsh labor conditions. Workers work from sunrise to sunset, and there are no lunch breaks or days off. They earn 2 cups of rice and the equivalent of 50 cents per day. Our society bemoans sweat shops and Wal Mart, but there is a lack of comparable anger over the horrifying conditions of diamond mining. Apparently, cheaply made clothes violate human rights, but diamonds do not.
Diamonds have come to symbolize love and commitment, and whenever I see them, I always wonder how many Africans died for them. I am truly ashamed that our consumerist society supports terror, death, and mutilation. Either we don't know it, or we choose to ignore this fact.
1 comment:
this is why i like the idea of synthetic diamonds - i love sparkly things as much as anyone, but not if it means someone suffered for it and that my purchase will fund further brutality and violence.
either that, or i like opals, too.
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