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This was a fantastic movie. I appreciate movies that tell a complex story from its complicated angles. Syriana worked this way, Traffic as well, and I think that as the world becomes more global and complicated, responsible filmmakers will continue to write these kind of scripts. There is a direct line from the plucky young newly engaged couple in Indiana to the atrocities in African mines, and tracing that line in a compelling way with a handsome lead and a pretty, pretty dame is appreciated by this movie goer. (Yes, Jennifer Connelly has a smile that could start a war.)
The male equivalent to child prostitution is making soldiers out if 11, 12, and 13 year old boys, and the movie did remarkable job showing how one goes about turning a child into a monster.
I'm going to go off on a tangent for a bit. Between muscular economic forces and guns, it's as if the west introduced a virus that Sierra Leone didn't have the constitution to repel. It's different in America because as guns have gotten better over the last 250 years, we've gotten better at not using them on each other, barely. We have a cultural infrastructure that can cope with presence of machine guns. We have schools and churches and libraries on every fifth corner, and it's not the same every where in the world. You can talk about laying the physical infrastructure, with roads and water. You can talk about laying the economic infrastructure, with jobs and factories. But unless you down a cultural infrastructure, schools being a major implement of civilization, wars are going to erupt anywhere there are guns and money. I also adore how the movie showed the bureaucratic element didn't so much start the violence, but it does have a severe interest in keeping the crimes happening.
There is a part of me who is suspicious of international relations, especially in terms of business. There is a part of me who sees international diplomacy as a confidence scheme cooked up by money men to profit from the basest needs of mankind. Besides sex and food and war, how else can two nations without common religion or language relate?
posted
May I link to my review of the film? OK, thanks.
I agree with your take on it, mostly. I especially like that you compared it to Syriana; the latter was less straightforward in its plot and a good deal more subtle, but as you say, both films try to cover massive moral crises from a number of angles. One could make the charge that the cause of the rebels was played down, but in reality the rebels hardly had an agenda. They just had guns, a need for food and shelter, and a lust for power.
quote:There is a part of me who sees international diplomacy as a confidence scheme cooked up by money men to profit from the basest needs of mankind.
I think that part of you is called the cynic, or the pessimist. Not all trade is exploitative, and usually benefits both parties. Just as there are conflict ridden nations where diamonds are used to fund wars, there are other more stable African countries who's economies are fuelled by legitimately procured stones. Also, I'm not sure about the human rights implications of buying diamonds from Sierra Leone today; presumably they are no longer classed as blood diamonds, since the rebellion is over.
That said, one important point the film made was that there is a recurring pattern in Africa and much of the developing world; in regions where there are resources, the people there suffer and die. Rubber, ivory, now diamonds. Hence the man who remarks, "Let’s hope they don’t find oil here. Then we’d have real problems." That hints to something, I know it.
[Caveat: You make me feel unjustifiably jealous when you praise Jennifer Connelly.]
posted
As to the actual subject, Blood Diamond was a fantastic movie. After seeing The Departed, I'm split on which was my top movie for 2006, but it was utterly fantastic. Gripping story, stunning acting, and an emotional ending.
The virus that the west introduced was what? Diamonds or guns? All those AKs come from Russia, via east African and Middle Eastern arms bazaars. As for diamonds, I think there's some shared blame to go around there. Thanks to the Kimberly Process, less than what, 4% or something of all diamonds are considered conflict diamonds. Getting to there, from where we were was a voluntary process. And the system in Africa is set up by, run by, and those who profit from it are, largely Africans.
I'm not sure if you meant guns or diamonds, and it seems like you mean guns.
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I'm confused, Irami. Are you alluding to a comparison between Western techonology, money, and arms in Africa, and British opium in China?
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Lyrhawn, Demand and the currency necessary to get the weapons and force the labor to mine the diamonds on the cheap.
Euripides,
Yes. I don't know enough about the end of the Opium Wars in China. I am interested in the cultural component of China weaning itself off of dope. There is even a cultural component of AA, except China did it without God.
TL,
I think that there is a qualitative difference between male and female prostitution. The turning of these little kids into little murderers as displayed works for me.
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What's the big difference between child male and female prostitutes? I certainly get the difference between child soldiers and child prostitutes though.
And China was addicted to Opium before Britain ever sent ships to Cathae.
So let me get this straight. A small percentage, single digit percentage, of conflict diamonds are used to provide funds to the kinds of people that use them for purchasing weapons, and these same people are the ones that used forced labor to get the diamonds.
And thus everything that spawns from it, weapons, civil wars, killings, etc, etc, is the fault of the west because of law breaking murderous warlords who have a tiny foothold into a massive international commodity? I just want to get your position right before I explain why it's wrong.
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Quid, social norms. Due to social expectations concerning men and violence and women and sex, and the attending hang-ups in both regards, I saw the breaking of these boys into murderers as a mirror image of the breaking of women into whores. You probably won't agree, and I'm probably not going to care.
quote:And China was addicted to Opium before Britain ever sent ships to Cathae.
And Africans were killing Africans before grenades were introduced.
Euripides,
quote:That said, one important point the film made was that there is a recurring pattern in Africa and much of the developing world; in regions where there are resources, the people there suffer and die. Rubber, ivory, now diamonds. Hence the man who remarks, "Let’s hope they don’t find oil here. Then we’d have real problems." That hints to something, I know it.
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I didn't realise the motif was so widespread.
Irami, would I be right in interpreting your line of argument as being that imperialism (in its direct, economic, sphere-of-influence, or cultural forms) usually leads to bloodshed or other social discord? Because I'd agree with that.
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Yes and no, I think that inequality leads to bloodshed and social discord. Imperalism too often profits from inequality. I also think that there is a way in which different economic and social systems grow slowly with each other over time, and with thought, and if you upgrade weapons before you upgrade the culture, you'll have a violent shock to the system that'll result in bloodshed. I'm interested about China because, if I'm right, Mao introduced a cultural countershock to offset the influence of opium.
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quote:Imperalism too often profits from inequality.
Is there any way for imperialism to exist in the absence of inequality? Isn't imperialism often the source of inequality?
quote:I also think that there is a way in which different economic and social systems grow slowly with each other over time, and with thought, and if you upgrade weapons before you upgrade the culture, you'll have a violent shock to the system that'll result in bloodshed.
Agreed whole heartedly.
I'm no expert on Chinese history, but wouldn't you say Mao's Great Leap Forward was more of an effort to modernize and get back on par with the established powers, rather than a counterattack on a specific aspect of British imperialism like the opium trade? I think it had more in common with Japan's Meiji Restoration; rapid modernization and centralisation, tempered with a strong sense of nationalism. In Japan the appeal to authority was to the imperial power structure, rooted in tradition, while on the other hand the GLP's appeal to authority was to revolutionary ideas that would have captivated a downtrodden agrarian China. The Second Opium War ended in 1860, which is about the time Japan realised it didn't want to be treated the same way and started on the road to empire. The GLP began in 1958, although other Moaist popular movements long preceded it.
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: You probably won't agree, and I'm probably not going to care.
That's probably the first thing you've ever said that I agreed with - the fact that I don't agree. And there's no point in discussing it further.
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quote:Originally Posted by Irami: And Africans were killing Africans before grenades were introduced.
Okay, so why aren't you blaming China for inventing gun powder? If you aren't going to make people take responsibility for their own actions, I don't see why you stop at the Western world, let's go ALL the way back to the source.
So far as economic problems, look at the situation in Blood Diamond. India or some other diamond refiner purchases diamonds legally from a nation that mines them ethically. They polish the stones, grade them, and send them off to the distributors. The distributors sell them to venders, and then to people. Now there's nothing wrong with that. It's the right of nations to sell their natural resources as they see fit, and I'd say this particular situation has no real ethical problems with it.
The hitch is when a neighbor to one of those diamond producing countries does it unethically, by tyrannically enslaving workers, forcing them to mine diamonds, and then smuggling them over the border into the good guy. Now the crime is being committed by the tyrant, and the smuggler, but you are placing the blame, I think, on Western buyers.
I think Europe, specifically, has a legacy of pain to pay for in Africa, not so much America at all really. I think they caused many of the problems in Africa, and really in the world, even though America is tasked with the blame for most of it anyway. The West aren't the ones getting automatic weapons in Africa, as I explained earlier. By the time most of Europe left, they didn't have anything more advanced than a 1940's era Springfield. I think the difference that Euripides touched on is very important, a sense of nationalism. Japan advanced much more swiftly than it would have by itself, but a sense of nationalism kept them largely from butchering each other. Much of Africa has no sense of nationalism, no trust in the government, no trust in fellow citizens of a territory surrounded by borders. As such, when weapons that kill people more and more easily are brought into play, tribal warfare undaunted for centuries grows into a much larger scale. Who in there is to blame? Certainly there is a lot of blame to be leveled at Europe for their historical role in screwing up the region, but I think a large, large part if it lies with Africa itself.
I remain unconvinced that death tolls would be much smaller if they didn't have automatic weapons. I've seen enough evidence to convince me that what they'd lack in weaponry, they'd make for in tenacity and a large stockpile of machetes.
The reason the man in the village doesn't want them to find oil is because he knows there will be an immediate struggle to control the oil fields so they can sell it to the outside world. And they know that death will come swiftly.
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quote:I've seen enough evidence to convince me that what they'd lack in weaponry, they'd make for in tenacity and a large stockpile of machetes.
That's the big question.
Euripides,
I'm going to revise my statement about inequality. I think you can have social inequality, as long as it's in line with, and motivated by, the pervailing cultural narratives.
You don't mind being a servant to the queen if you believe that the queen was crowned with the blessing of God. You don't mind the barefoot and pregnant life as long as you believe Paul was doling out gender roles in the name of God.
I think that as long as people can fit their lives within the context of a compelling story, there isn't a problem. This is one of the reasons why I believe civilization requires art for its viability. When technology improves faster than art can cope, that's when you'll get wars and genocide and global warming and profligate living.
This is one of the reasons why I think that international relations are tricky: there aren't enough compelling stories that span across nations to encompass everyone's responsibilities, and so the whole business is managed by largely artless profiteers playing to the most degraded impulses.
quote:I've seen enough evidence to convince me that what they'd lack in weaponry, they'd make for in tenacity and a large stockpile of machetes.
That's the big question.
I'd have to agree with Adam here. Rwanda managed fine; not to say that imperialism isn't one of the major sources of that and many other African crises.
quote:I think that as long as people can fit their lives within the context of a compelling story, there isn't a problem. This is one of the reasons why I believe civilization requires art for its viability. When technology improves faster than art can cope, that's when you'll get wars and genocide and global warming and profligate living.
This is one of the reasons why I think that international relations are tricky: there aren't enough compelling stories that span across nations to encompass everyone's responsibilities, and so the whole business is managed by largely artless profiteers playing to the most degraded impulses.
This is fascinating and possibly very contentious. Had 'art' been replaced with the broader 'culture' and compelling stories with overall social development, I'd agree. Technology being collective ability, and social development being collective responsibility and a commitment to a moral and/or legal code. But art does play a defining role there.
It's surprising how often I make life-altering choices by visualising my life as a story and comparing it to other stories I admire. I'm sure that's quite common.
What do you mean by "degraded impulses" though? Are we still talking about conflict diamonds and the arms trade?
Do we have to have reasons beyond material interest to engage in legitimate trade?
quote: It's surprising how often I make life-altering choices by visualising my life as a story and comparing it to other stories I admire. I'm sure that's quite common.
There a saying that goes, roughly, "Man would never have fallen in love unless he had heard a story about it." US Navy numbers spiked because of "Top Gun," and I have a friend who went to law school because of "Ally McBeal." Stories are a huge deal, and not just the transitory popular ones. Even Jesus used the power of stories by teaching through parables.
Great, foundational works are supposed to reveal the destiny of an entire community. That's why everyone learned the Iliad in Attica. That's why the Torah is ubiquitous among Jews, and why many Americans can recognize the Declaration of Independence. The stories are supposed to serve as currency for people to talk about and understand their boundaries with and relationships to each other. These ideas are supposed serve as a foundation, and are also supposed to travel. Hannah Arendt does a better job in On Revolution, laying this point out, but I think that if you have guns, or drugs, or inequality, without the attending morally relevant stories, then you are going to have trouble, whether the trouble comes in the face of war zones in Africa or the decadent, affluent slums of Orange County, Ca.
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