November 2006 Archives

Dear Chan,

WTF were you thinking? When DeBeers is still refusing to make a sincere good-faith effort to enforce the rules that would help end the conflict diamond trade, refusing to effectively police itself, after having fought government regulation, you decide it's a good time to shill some product for them? Do you really need that money?

Here's what Global Witness says:

Conflict diamonds, also known as blood diamonds, have contributed to wars in Africa that have killed millions of people, destroying lives and wrecking countries. Since 2000, the diamond industry has not done enough to fulfil the pledges it has made to eradicate blood diamonds from international trade. In response to pressure from Global Witness, Partnership Africa Canada, and other civil society groups, the key trade bodies representing the global diamond industry agreed to a voluntary system of self-regulation aimed at helping to prevent the trade in blood diamonds and in supporting the government-run Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (Kimberley Process). The polished and retail sectors of the diamond industry opposed stringent government regulation when the Kimberley Process was being negotiated, and the industry was left to police itself.

Six years after the blood diamond issue came to international attention, the industry has failed to change its practices. International diamond trade bodies have issued countless press releases and statements claiming that the problem has been solved, but have provided little information on what they have actually done to fix it and fulfil their promises. Despite vast profits made by many in the diamond industry—in 2005 diamond jewelery sales were over US$60 billion—little has been invested to ensure that blood diamonds will not be able to enter the legitimate trade.

Your music has always been profoundly humane. On your best album, You Are Free, you sang about kids whose lives were wrecked by violence and abuse, and we all wept our eyes out. Are the lives of the millions of Africans not also worth your consideration? And okay, there's not a lot of young indie kids in the market for tennis bracelets, but is it not obvious that the ad agencies are trying to placate and neutralize the generation of young progressive people who would otherwise be making a scene and protesting DeBeers, so that we grow up into nice obedient consumers?

Seriously, are you back on the sauce or something???

xo,
Kevin

More info in this PDF.

Hey guys! AP is reporting that Ecuador is the latest country to elect a leftist leader! Joining Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and others!

Interestingly, as Alex of Q-bomb pointed out to me, the losing candidate was a billionaire banana mogul(!) who tried to use the same blend of pseudo-populism, free-market fundamentalism, and Christianity that North American conservatives do! Only with way less subtlety!

Noboa, a 56-year-old billionaire who has touted his close relationships with the rich and powerful in the U.S., said he would not concede defeat until the official count is completed.

Noboa had run an old-fashioned populist campaign, crisscrossing Ecuador and handing out computers, medicine and money. Before voting earlier Sunday in the coastal city of Guayaquil, he read a passage from the Bible in the midst of a mob of supporters pushing to touch him.

He then fell to his knees, asking God for his support and saying all he wanted was "to serve, to serve, to serve" the poor.

"Like Christ, all I want is to serve ... so that the poor can have housing, health care, education, jobs," he said.

This is especially interesting because Latin American Christianity long emphasized liberation theology and the plight of the poor. In the latter half of the 20th century, Catholicism, as the dominant Christian tradition, urged Latin American politics towards land reform and pro-labor measures and leftist governments that often put them at odds with US policymakers (not to mention the Vatican). Now the banana mogul dude is coopting the rhetoric of great people like Gustavo Guiterrez who united Christian service with a political praxis centered on the concerns of the poor, but with almost diametrically opposite policy goals in mind!

Happily, it looks like the voters didn't fall for it. Good job, voters!