Lifestyle > Train of Thought

Another Stupid Urban Legend... That Somehow Not Buying Diamonds Will Help Africa

(1/5) > >>

TraceOneInfinite:
I just heard it in a Nas song today.  Something about, "I don't buy the diamonds they steal from Africa."  And then these black nationalists that want to perpetrate myths, telling some dude off who has diamonds in his chain or on a ring or something that he is somehow fueling war in Africa and that that diamond comes at the expense of Africans being killed for it.  This is a stupid as myth.  For this myth to work, you would basically have to have the evil white man somehow going into Africa and killing these Africans and taking their diamonds, which I'm sure makes sense to them, but it's not reality.

The real situation is that African's in the region are extremely poor.  Diamond mining in a place like Sierra Leone is a job for these people, many whom would not have any job if it wasn't for the diamond trade.  Yet because Sierra Leonne doesn't have a stable government, turf wars have developed in the past over the mining of these diamonds.  But to stop buying diamonds from there is to throw the baby out with the bath water.  Because even if you bought the diamonds that were approved by the government and stayed away from the so-called "blood diamonds" you are not helping Africans.  Because, for many of these Africans the only way they can make money and mine the diamonds is if they do it on the black market, otherwise the government can have them arrested and say they are unlicensed or take the diamonds and not crediting them with the original discovery of the diamond.

Fraxxx:
Why would I buy diamonds in the first place?

13th Duke:
People don't buy diamonds because they disagree with the criminality of the process and the salve-trade conditions people work in at the bottom level of it. Its nothing to do with whether it "helps" Africa or not.

The Overfiend:


Exactly. A few people buying or not buying diamonds won't make a difference because the diamond industry is worth billions.

For the black nationalists, its probably more a cultural symbolic gesture. People are reduced to mere gestures in the face of forces beyond their control.

TraceOneInfinite:

--- Quote from: 13th Duke on August 09, 2010, 10:18:41 AM ---People don't buy diamonds because they disagree with the criminality of the process and the salve-trade conditions people work in at the bottom level of it. Its nothing to do with whether it "helps" Africa or not.

--- End quote ---

That's really smart.  Don't buy diamonds, try and take away the one job they do have, and one of their most valuable resource and force them to be totally jobless and push them deeper into poverty?


This is like the people that didn't want to buy clothes from so-called "sweat shops" over in East Asia, because they forgot that the people had no job at all before the job at the factory, and that they were only making things even worse for them.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page