Conflict, diamonds, love, and hope

This is something that has been particularly bothering me lately, and with good reason.

Regulators for the Kimberley Process met in Johannesburg this past week to discuss the diamond trade, and Zimbabwe in particular. The Kimberley Process investigation team had recommended the country's diamond exports be suspended, due to severe human rights abuses and the question as to what the revenue from the trade was funding. Quality analysis of what ensued can be found here: http://allafrica.com/stories/200911050938.html and here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5go389c2XyhmXenpmcVmLb0C9402gD9BQ52Q84

Look at the picture of these women! These are the people mining our diamonds, giving us those supposed "precious" jewels we wear on our wrists, around our fingers, in our ears, and on necklaces right next to our hearts! These women, and thousands of women, men, and children like them, live in slave conditions and are horrifically treated so we can spend highly inflated amounts of money buying what can hardly be considered a a rare stone worthy of our "three months' salary." It only takes a small amount of research to confirm what is obvious by logic: diamond cartels saturate the market with advertisements proclaiming diamonds to be the essential symbol of love, wealth, eternity, and purity, compelling our purchases with no questions asked. And why ask, when the diamond ring is now the only symbol of "love" one can give another when asking for a hand in marriage? But how a gem, produced in the midst of slavery, terror, and exploitation, could possibly stand for eternal love - this is not a question I am prepared to answer.

What of the Kimberley Process? Developed in 2001-02, the Kimberly Process was meant to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the global trade. And while it has had some success, the regulatory process is fraught with issues, not the least of which its sole focus on conflict diamonds, and not the other significant human rights issues surrounding the diamond mining industry. Such a tiny mandate leaves issues such as rape, slavery, and human trafficking outside the Kimberly Process. So while your diamond may be conflict free (still difficult to guarantee), it may still be, perhaps literally, covered in blood.

Diamonds are unnecessary to love. They are unnecessary to beauty, and antithetical to freedom for many in this world. If you cannot avoid diamonds, buy Canadian. Urge those you know to learn about diamonds before placing one on their finger, in cuff links, or anywhere else, for that matter. I'm not sure what, exactly, can be done about industrial diamonds. But the gem diamond trade we do control directly, and we need to know what that means for our fellow souls across the globe. We cannot do harm to others without feeling it to ourselves. We cannot buy a diamond in such a market and pretend we have done no wrong. Our dollars fuel the trade; each purchase we make ensures the continued enslavement of a fellow human being. We will likely never meet those who mine a continent away. But our hearts are one, and by opening our hearts, we can, at the very basic level, begin to remove ourselves from exploitation and toward a more fair, equal world.