Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Lancastrians take conflict seriously
Deep in the heart of Lancaster, local businesses are doing their bit to prevent violent conlfict in Africa. Recently a number of jewelry have begun to question the origins of the diamonds they sell to their customers. As one local jeweloer stated, the money made on these illegal diamonds goes to fuel conflict and violence in Africa. By tracking the diamonds and ensuring that they are from a conflict-free zone, both the jeweler and the customer can be ensured that they are not supporting bloodshed in another country. It is heartening to see local businesses taking up a cause such as this. Only through increased awareness can the nature of conflict in the aAfrican continent be truly understood. And this helps, diamond by diamond.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Featured Post
Turkey's Ban on Insults against Erdogan
Since 2005 Turkey has had a law against insults against Erdogan known as Article 299. The article declares that citizens can be imprisoned ...
-
Great news! Now you can sit back in the comfort of your own home and actually see (provided you have access to high-speed internet) the phys... -
From 600,000 to 1 million souls slaughtered in just 100 days in Rwanda. Thousands killed, raped and mutilated in Darfur, Sudan. On-going civ...
-
Darfur Sudan. Many Americans don't even know where that is. For many in Darfur, it is hell on earth. An estimated 2.6 million people ha...
5 comments:
After watching Blood Diamond over break I could not agree more that it is nice to see businesses, especially on a local scale, finally step up and take action against conflict diamonds. On an international scale, as the superpower of the world and the country looked to for setting examples the United States is sending a positive message: diamonds acquired through means of exploitation and violence will not be tolerated. Any company that turns the other way and accepts these conflict diamonds deserves no support. There is no economic demand high enough to warrant blood diamonds.
I also agree that it’s great that local businesses are demanding to know the origin of diamonds. Finally, Hollywood has helped in something. However, I think we must fully understand what constitutes a blood diamond. Blood diamonds are defined as diamonds “mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading army's war efforts” (wikipedia.org). This denotation is given only in situations of war. A diamond extracted by the exploitation of workers does not make the cut for being constituted as a conflict diamond. Nor does it make the cut if the profits go solely to the dictator or the company extracting it and do not benefit the local people whatsoever. I think this distinction is very important. Often, people substitute conflict with exploitation and therefore think that these diamonds are exploitation-free. Therefore, in addition to a conflict-free denotation, I suggest instituting an “exploitation-free” denotation. Who's with me on this one?
I agree and I think that more regulation needs to be enacted. It mentioned at the end of the article that the Kimberley Process has been under scrutiny from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International that believe the system is still open to abuse. Along with "conflict free" not necessarily meaning exploitation free or the profit of diamonds not extending to the people of the country, the movie Blood Diamond showed how some conflict diamonds are able to become “conflict free” by being imported into to a war-free zone and sold from that country. More attention needs to be paid to ways around the system such as this before diamonds can ever become completely conflict free like people just assume the name means.
I completely support the idea of making sure you are buying a “conflict-free” diamond, especially having seen the movie Blood Diamond. However, it is unclear to me that anyone can ensure where a diamond came from. I am very cynical about the whole thing and I am not sure what it would take for me to really trust I knew where the diamond is from. Until then I guess it is good that I am not planning on purchasing any diamonds in the near future.
Although it is great that local business places are being scrupulous about the origin of diamonds, however, numerous articles in the New York Times have indicated that the big jewelry shops like Tiffany’s, etc., in New York, LA and even Chicago are having problems locating the certificates of authenticity and origin for their diamonds. Although I agree that every diamond helps “one diamond at a time”, I find it still disheartening that the major players in the industry who import diamonds at much higher rates than us Lancasterians are not cooperating.
Post a Comment