Blood Diamond – DRAFT 1 To what extend does Edward Zwick, produce a successful portrayal of Africa’s lifestyle and enlighten the audience to the treachery that surround conflict diamonds in Blood Diamond? The film, Blood Diamond, depicts a nation on paths of declining function as a country and its war-inflicted tear upon itself. Involving the height of conflict and struggle of political, economic and social magnitudes and all else in between Sierra Leone’s Civil War (1996-1999), Edward Zwick directed a successful and engaging film. In isolation, the film solely basis itself around the double-edged sword that is conflict diamonds, bringing both wealth and turmoil following the three protagonists Danny Archer, Solomon Vandy, and Maddy Bowen. After Danny and Solomon meet in prison, the film depicts Archer’s search for the diamond and Vandy’s pursuit for his family.
The trade wars between Old Calabar and New Calabar exemplified the best and the worst characteristics of capitalism. In 1767, the Efiks of New Town allied with the English to ambush the Efiks Of Old Town, turning the trade competition into a violent clash. The result of this was ambush was the kidnapping of the two Robin John brothers. The Robin Johns were able to apply their skills and knowledge of their English language, culture and legal system to not only survive the dreaded middle passage but to exploit the freshly decided 1772 Somerset case in order to obtain their freedom. Sparks writes, “ Here we have the remarkable case of African slaves arguing to the Lord Chief Justice of England that their enslavement violated the rules governing the Efik trade and English law as well” (101).
The rebels use the diamonds to fund their weapons. In the film Blood Diamond, innocent people are killed or forced to work slaves in the diamond rivers and children are taken away to become cruel, inhumane child soldiers. Director Edward Zwick uses techniques such as cross cutting with music, documentary style, close up and over-the-shoulder shots to demonstrate the strong idea of the exploitation of people for illegal conflict diamonds that fund the civil wars in Sierra Leonne. Firstly, Zwick uses cross-cutting and music to create a strong link between the West and Africa in the exploitation of people for diamonds. During the RUF invasion, cross cutting is used in conjunction with loud Hip Hop music and the screams of fear from innocent villagers.
King Leopold's Ghost tells a story of the Belgian King Leopold II and his misrule of an African colony, named (at the time) the Congo Free State. It is a wild and unpleasant story of a man's capacity for evil and the peculiar manifestation of it. In telling this story, Hochschild does a wonderful job of giving detailed descriptions, especially of the colorful individuals involved, both good and bad. His analysis of the situation is very solid, starting with the movement when the Congolese hero (Morel) finds out a very terrible fact and moving on through his (Morel) analysis and actions, all the while telling the story of a treacherous monster. Set in the palaces and boardrooms of Europe and in the villages of central Africa, it tells the story of the tragedy that took place during Leopold's so called rule, a tragedy that is so familiar to African-Americans, being told of our African brothers residing in the homeland.
XXXX XX XXXXX XXXXs Writing 1310-1A 20 April 2011 Blood Diamond S.E. Smith defined the blood diamond, and also referred to as a conflict or war diamond, which is a diamond sold to finance terrorism or other violent acts including civil war (Smith). The blood diamond trade has been recognized as a global problem, with terrorist organizations in a wide range of nations benefiting from the trade of these diamonds. Due to Tiseke Kasambala’s opinion, the blood diamond problem is most severe in Africa, where several nations including Liberia, Angola, and Sierra Leone have been affected, leading organizations such as the United Nations to enact resolutions to combat the sale of blood diamonds (Kasambala). Diamonds, one of the major luxuries in the world, represented richness and peerage in the old days, but it is identified as the symbol of love, loyalty and steadfastness nowadays.
“The Year 2011 has the chance to be a watershed year for the African Diamond Trade. For the first time since the implementation of the Kimberley Process an African State the Democratic Republic of the Congo has the rotating Chair of this Process. So the question that needs to be asked is” What Agenda will the DRC Promote while in charge of the KP?”1 Under several different circumstances, the American people have penetrated African to acquire earthly materials. These items include ivory, oil, gold, and blood diamonds. Each time, this affected the African culture in a negative manner.
Some diamonds have helped fund devastating civil wars in Africa, destroying the lives of 3.7 million people. Conflict diamonds are those sold in order to fund armed conflict and civil war. Profits from the trade in conflict diamonds, worth billions of dollars, were used by warlords and rebels to buy arms during the devastating wars in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sierra Leone. While the wars in Angola and Sierra Leone are now over and fighting in the DRC has decreased, the problem of conflict diamonds hasn't gone away. Diamonds mined in rebel-held areas in Côte d'Ivoire, a West African country in the midst of a volatile conflict, are reaching the international diamond market.
The first involvement was a terrible CIA-backed effort to snatch Angola's oil-producing Cabinda enclave, which began in 1975. Mobutu's meddling in Angola set a pattern for the rest of his rule. He continuously kept a finger in the crises of neighboring countries. With its borders with nine other countries, Mobutu marketed his country to Washington and Paris, obtaining economic aid and political support in
In the novel, many subsequent lines of inquiry conclude that the early official estimates were essentially correct: roughly half the population of the Congo perished during the Free State period. The efforts of King Leopold II of Belgium to make the Congo into a colonial empire include a complex scheme of political intrigue, corruption and propaganda. He wins the assistance of public opinion and of powerful states. Through the Berlin Conference and other diplomatic efforts, he finally obtains international recognition for his colony. He then establishes a system of forced labor that keeps the people of the Congo in a condition of slavery for ivory and rubber.
Then Kloby helps us look at real examples of different times in which colonialism has hurt Africans more than helped them. All of these authors have come to one clear consensus: colonialism has ultimately destroyed Africa’s chances of becoming a great and powerful continent. In Mies’ essay, she tends to be very pessimistic about the Africa being able to “catch-up” to other already developed countries. Mies says that, “the poverty of the underdeveloped nations is not as a result of ‘natural’ lagging behind but the direct consequence of the overdevelopment of the rich industrial countries who exploit the so-called periphery in Africa” (151). She denies that possibility that Africa can catch up by following the same path of industrialization, technological progress, and capital accumulation as the more developed countries have used.