Blood Diamonds: The Real Story Behind The Diamond Trade.
Most of us live in a world of luxury; three meals a day, food on the table, clothes to wear, and a temperature regulated house which in fact, has a roof over our heads. We are so privileged that we even complain about the things so freely given to us, such as our food, clothes, phones, and our given right to education. But what about those who yearn to live a life that isn’t made to feed our privileges? After years, greed captivates the heart of man- being able to send countries into poverty, corruption, and other forms of ruin- all in the hopes of richness. Our clothes are sewn by underpaid labour. Food we enjoy, such as bananas, oranges, and coffee is grown outside of the northern
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It often demeans the voice of people such as the Sierra Leonean- but as such, there is always a lack of care for the impoverished as long as the upper class get what they want. “There is no lack of buyers for their goods...there was little concern about where they originated, or the amount of suffering the sellers had inflicted on innocent people,” (xxii). People are being forced to evacuate their homes for the diamond trade. Civilians are being amputated, mutilated against their will by rebels, to prove their domination over a potentially peaceful country. Those living in the northern hemisphere, in first World nations, would rather share information about celebrities, rather than the lives of those in need, which feeds the notion of the rebels who believe that they can do anything. Sierra Leone’s civilians have a shot at fighting those who have overthrown them, to have an ally who has more power; it’s only that the privileged ideals have turned to something …show more content…
Massacres have been conducted with self explanatory names, such as Operation Pay Yourself, to Operation No Living Thing (xxi). “Not only is the country (Sierra Leone) rich in gem and quality diamonds, but it’s also a repository for oil, rubies, gold, rutile, and bauxite. It should be the Saudi Arabia of Africa, but it’s not,” ( xxii). Fair trade was created for a reason similar to this, those usually distributing the product abuse the labour they have, which will only intensify the gap between the rich and the poor. Stones stolen from Sierra Leone at the tip of a machete and the barrel of an AK-47 could be anywhere, from safe houses in Monrovia, to deposits in Belgium, to display cases of jewelry stores in the neighborhood mall (226). This proves it has been close to impossible where diamonds have come from, which only equates this issue to being
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the recent 2006 film Blood Diamond both depict how it was living in Sierra Leone, Africa during the Civil War in the ‘90’s. While A Long Way Gone focuses on child soldiers and what they had to live and go through for many years, Blood Diamond focuses mainly on how the country is torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections. Both the movie and the book try to tackle major issues by asking the questions: how
Greed takes over many peoples lives today and it seems that the world revolves around money, wealth and other things and it controls many peoples lives. For example, the four children that own walmart made over 29 Billion dollars a year for owning walmart but they pay their 1.4 million workers so little that they can’t support themselfs. This example should really be addressed because even though they make so much money a year that they could just burn most of it and still be rich when their workers struggle to make a living. On the other hand Walmart started from nothing and grew to where it is.
reality of the most brutal 20th century civil war in Sierra Leone. Mariatu tells a very
It will investigate the reparations of the civil war and discover if the situation of Sierra Leone could be labelled as a genocide. If so, can the post-genocide approach adopted by Mozambique be the most appropriate? Also, are the other approaches most applicable? Could some aspects of the approaches been adoptable? Meanwhile, understanding the ideology that what functions best in one society does not necessarily apply to another will be considered. As Cobban (2007) indicates “the idea [of]…one size fits all approach…seems not only misplaced but also possibly very dangerous for the members of…[post atrocity] societies; and any attempt to impose such solution …seem very damaging” (Cobban, 2007, p.
Whilst raising money for African charities at school I developed an interest in global inequality and alternative policies that can help low-income nations escape the poverty trap. Reading ’23 Things’ by Ha-Joon Chang, I was intrigued by his view on blaming free-market policies like SAPs that exposed sub-Saharan Africa to international competition, slowing economic growth. Hence, this extended my research to the other side of the
Unlike the slave traders who came before him, King Leopold managed to take possession of and exploit the indigenous people of Congo, their land, and their resources on an unprecedented scale. He obtained a network of valuable raw materials and millions free laborers to extract them. At the hands of King Leopold II’s workers, the people of Congo suffered horrific travesties. Not only did they suffer the loss of their land, the people of Congo were the victims of a hostile militant take over, who’s main purpose was to become a profitable service to the King’s ever-growing greed. His beloved pet project would later prove to be an efficient murder machine. In order to gather resources and labor for the King’s projects, workers acted mercilessly. They swindled land from local Congo tribes, held women hostage, and forced children into work.(109)(111)”(119). George Washington Williams best penned King Leopold II’s cruelty in his detailed documentation. His account contrasted the lies that King Leopold fed the public while simultaneously addressing the barbaric methods employed such as chain gangs, capturing women, forced laborers, and shooting for sport. (Pages 110-111) The result of this barbaric approach to harvest raw materials was the loss of people estimating to be half of the total population of Congo(page 233 )
In America, most of our parents at a very early age that we should be grateful for what we have. Even with these teachings Americans are finding it hard to do just that. American Capitalism is built off of the concept that anybody can buy property, open a practice/start a business, and profit off of it. One thing that both “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck teach us is that the system of American capitalism isn’t perfect. Both of these books show both sides of capitalism, those who make it and those who don’t. In both books the rich are ignoring the bad things they inflict on the poor because it makes them richer and more powerful. As Rick Danko said, “As time goes on we get closer to that
Within this nine-chapter, two-part book, author Paul Farmer single handedly both analyzed, and harshly critiqued the central and deeply rooted ideas of poverty throughout the world. In his book, Pathologies of Power, he tackles the daunting and largely misunderstood topic of poverty “to reveal the ways in which the most basic right-the right to survive- is trampled in an age of great affluence... (pg.6). Farmer, is both a professor of medical anthropology at Harvard, a doctor, and a founding director of Partners in Health, which is a global health organization that is concentrated in the most poverty-stricken areas to bring proper health care to those in need. These positions have allowed him to travel to some of the most underdeveloped areas in the world, with the largest portion of his time spent in Haiti. The experiences and observations that Farmer made in these locations provided him with a foundation of first-hand knowledge to come to the conclusion that the inequality toward the poor in terms of their basic human rights creates social violence, which is a
The doors open slowly when a semi-delirious man uses his back to push them open. Makeshift bandages are nearly bled-through despite the string tourniquets a kind passerby had made for the now-destitute man after he had collapsed on the road to the hospital. He numbly rambles out his story, it’s not one the hospital staff is unfamiliar with but the macabre details are still worthy of nightmares. The man, Ismael, relives a more coherent version once the antibiotics have started to fight off the infections around his amputated hands: “The first victim was dragged forward and forced to kneel before a stump. As the man screamed, he severed one limb first, then the next” (Campbell, Ch. 1, para. 6). Ismael described the way that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) attacked his village of Koidu, Sierra Leone – an area that is rich in diamonds, the catalyst that led not only to the RUF, but the civil wars that plagued the region. Even though Ismael’s story is likely a dramatized conglomerate of similar tales from the region, it does serve to illustrate the plight for which Sierra Leone was renown. Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and certain other African nations had been in a state of near constant conflict since the 1980s, or earlier.
Blood diamond are “diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council”. Blood Diamond is a story about the precious gem acquired through blood and sufferings of common people. How much blood is spilt for each pieces of this luxury, how many tears dried into the very ground it is gathered from. Except from the people that are involved in the whole process of stealing or smuggling a nation’s natural wealth. Sierra Leone, where the storyline takes place, gets nothing. Its people are suffering through extreme poverty, hunger, illiteracy and diseases. Adding insult to injury, there is a fast emerging brutal terrorist group called RUF, destroying the system, collapsing government, killing innocents and taking children as soldiers. Making sure the country never progress and prosper or never grow the backbone to stand on its feet ever to use the valuable diamonds it holds on the ground. For example, when the illegal and unethical blood diamond trade was brought to light, it was ignored by the most potentially influential global players because of economic interest. What resulted was that the situation snowballed over the duration that it has occurred over and when the issue finally came to a head
Sierra Leone is an African country that has recently come out of a civil war that led to the country’s severe and persistent poverty issue. Although Sierra Leone is one of the few countries that is rich in some precious natural resources such as diamonds and rare minerals, this country has been continuously dealing with poverty-related issues . Based on the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI), Sierra Leone was listed as one of the poorest countries in the world in 2006 and remains among the world’s poorest countries, ranking 180th out of 187 countries in the HDI in 2011 . The civil war caused poverty to spread throughout Sierra Leone.
Not only does this issue involve the politics of the diamond trade and the involvement of outside parties, but it is also a devastatingly serious human rights violation to the civilians of Angola. “There is an average of 52 land mine incidents per month and approximately 1 out of every 356 Angolans is an amputee as a result of these bloody conquests”[4]. It was determined in a United Nations Security Council meeting that “there are clear and major weaknesses in systems for controlling diamond trading, which no single country can address effectively because of the many alternative routes available to illicit diamond traders”[5]. Therefore, in order to combat the civil fighting between UNITA and the MPLA, we must educate ourselves about UNITA’s diamond trade, prohibit the sale of blood diamonds, and achieve a commitment from diamond dealers that their diamonds originate from conflict-free mines.
Therefore, to give up one’s luxuries so that less fortunate human beings can actually acquire necessities is a fair and simple request. Humans don’t need luxuries such as frivolous electronics and excessive clothes and accessories. However, humans do need food, shelter and other basic amenities. The fact that so many people have both necessities and luxuries while others have neither is a shocking reality that needs to be changed.
Hunger for luxury items and people’s strife for the brands and items they associate with being beyond reach is paramount for this system. It is this drive for items one can’t have that the author feels is one of the benefits of consumerism. He declares, “…the aspiration of the poor to
Ian Kershaw once said, “The road to Auschwitz was built by hate but paved with indifference.” He is one hundred percent accurate with his statement. Whilst the Nazi’s hated the people they were imprisoning is made it all the more worse when they gave no thought to the torture the non-Aryan’s were forced to endure. The imprisoned peoples pleas and prayers had no effect on their capturers. When they were dying of thirsty, hunger, lack of sleep, etc. and needed help, none of the soldiers even thought of trying to aid them in any way.