Work, work and wisdom teeth have kept my blogging stream a dried-up river bed for the past 2 weeks. A nice, lazy Saturday has left me with enough energy to pen this one.
So whats with the diamonds you may ask…well I’m a former diamond lover. For many years I was on a quest to build my own diamond set starting with the solitaire ring my parents bought me for my 21st birthday. I cried endlessly when I lost one of my solitaire earrings and was utterly inconsolable for quite some time. I would dream about the 5 C’s my eventual engagement ring would have and never resisted peaking in at the jewellery display in stores I happened to pass by.
I never gave much thought to why I thought diamonds were so essential to my life other than they were supposed to be a “girls best friend” and how “diamonds are forever”. I must say De Beers had a marketing genius who managed to sucker in generations of women and still do. Its amazing that carbon atoms shaped into a sparkly gemstone can be a testament to love, loyalty and fidelity to the point where they matter more than the actual couple involved!
What changed all this for me was a documentary I happened to watch on a Saturday morning. It was called “blood diamonds”. I had heard of and seen the promos of the similarly titled movie but never watched it. What I saw on my tv screen touched my social conscience. I’m not someone overly concerned with the world at large nor do I have much sympathy for my fellow-man. What does form my moral compass is my principle to never aid the worsening of anyone’s trouble.
In the course of the documentary I watched how the trade of diamonds from war-torn African nations helped fuel civil war within countries where the condition of the common man were already troubled. Renegade soldiers armed with expensive and deadly weapons ran amok among the civilian population whom they were supposed to be representing in their fight to overthrow the establishment. Children were kidnapped, drugged, used as sex slaves, and given weapons and violence teased out of them until they became killing machines. Perceived and actual opposition was tamped down by rape, sexual mutilation and dismemberment.
I’m pretty big on the idea that if we put our mind to it and hands to work we can overcome our troubles and so I was deeply disturbed at watching the many people on screen who had had their hands chopped off in long and short sleeves. That to me speaks of a cruelty that has no excuse and deserves no forgiveness. Many of these renegades were given financial repatriation to bring in their weapons and rehabilitated into society.
Are they the real culprit in this scenario? No. The real culprits are you and I who have over years bought nice sparkly baubles for ourselves. Nice, sparkly baubles that were unearthed in camps run by these renegade armies and staffed by slave labour. Nice, sparkly baubles that even in today’s “fairer” diamond market, which tries to enforce the Kimberley process of verifying a diamonds country of origin, nets the man who bends over muddy waters in the heat and endures back-breaking labour some $20 for each stone. The same stone once routed through Antwerp will be sold at some $1,500.
Whichever way you juggle the scales there is only one way in which you can justify such a purchase .. by admitting that there is no justification and that you are putting yourself above every other concern you may have.
I’m unable to do that. So for me this is my public vow to not purchase any more diamonds. We all hear and I’ve often said change begins with us. Talk is cheap…its actions that back up the words which count.
A good weekend to all.
Preet-O: An idiosyncratic Life 