Can Bling Bling be Fairtrade too?

Remember the film Blood Diamond? I never managed to see it properly; the only time I saw it was on a speeding coach along the coast of Negros in the Philippines this past summer. We were on our way to a beautiful island where one of the CFA staff was from, and were most thrilled when the bus driver decided to show it on the small TV screen at the front of the bus. Feeling hungry (we had got up at 5am), cold (the AC was intent on freezing us) and slightly nauseous from the bumpy ride, I strained to follow the exciting plot.

The film, if you don’t already know, is set in the late 90s in Sierra Leone and tells a tale of a family being broken up by civil war, and about how the father sought to find his lost son who has now been captured by the rebel groups to become a child soldier. The film also showed something that has been happening for decades now – the conflict diamonds which feed many bloodthirsty civil wars in Africa. In such instances, rough diamonds are mined for by civilians who have been captured by rebel groups and sold onto the next stage of the diamond chain for large sums of money, which in turn finance the continuing warfare.

Obviously no one would want to knowingly buy or own any diamond that might potentially have been tainted by “blood”.

The Kimberly Process is an initiative that has been set up since 2000 to ensure that diamonds in the world market are properly accounted for, by imposing extensive requirements on members to shipments of rough diamonds as “conflict free” and thus prevent conflict/blood diamonds from entering into the legitimate trade.

However, the Kimberly Process does not certify individual jewellers. According to their website, as a consumer, you can play your part by requiring the jeweller where you’re purchasing from to answer the following questions:

How can I be sure your jewellery does not contain conflict diamonds?

Do your diamond suppliers participate in the industry’s ‘System of Warranties’*?

Can I see a copy of your company’s policy on conflict diamonds?

*The diamond industry has set up a 'System of Warranties' that complements, but is distinct from, the Kimberley Process. You can find out more here.

I came across a further question about 2 years ago whilst I was working at Tearfund. During one of the lunch time seminars, we were introduced to the ethical jeweller CRED. CRED, I found out, is a jeweller based in the UK which only sells conflict free diamond, but it even goes further to ensure that the diamonds and metal (gold, silver, stainless steel) which they sell are sourced in an environmentally friendly manner and that the workers involved in the exploration and refining are paid a fair wage!

How awesome is that!

Thankfully, when Rob thought of proposing 1.5 years ago, he had kept the mass email which I sent out about my new discovery of CRED, and he went to CRED and got me a beautiful, conflict free and fair trade diamond ring! (Apparently they had to source the diamond from Canada – as that’s the only place where the stones are definitely free of conflict as well as exploitation!)

CRED makes very beautiful and classic jewelry and has a wide range of engagement and wedding rings too.

For those of you who are married, I’m not suggesting you to go and change your engagement and wedding rings, though I would love to encourage those who have not got rings to please consider CRED (or any other such jeweller, just do a Google search!), and do your extra bit in making our world a more ethical place.

The Pacific

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. - The Bible

I’m not normally a big fan of war movies.

Last night, after Rob and I finished watching The Pacific DVD, an HBO mini series, we found ourselves sitting on the sofa, astounded and moved. The Pacific is a 10-episode TV series about World War II, focussing on what happened in the islands in the Pacific (between Japan and Australia). History is not exactly my strongest subject, so this was particularly educational for me. I hadn’t realise that a lot more (at least in Western media) has been written or screened about WWII in Europe than WWII in Asia, and that the war in many ways was a lot uglier and horrific in the East. As the Japanese army refused to surrender in all of the islands which Japan occupied then (which the American army had to invade, one by one, in order to get to mainland Japan), the Americans had to fight every inch of the occupied territories and kill every Japanese soldier in the long drawn war.

I don’t normally like movies or TV with too much violence, and I generally find war stories a bit too macho (and dull in terms of colour – jungle colours). But I have to admit that I really liked the Pacific, not least because it was educational in terms of what happened in history, but more so because it showed in a real way the horrors of war, both the highs and lows of humanity, and how war, no matter how justified it is, is really bad for us – the world.

The Pacific does not glorify war, so even as it got to the point of the Japanese surrender, there was no outright display of jubilation (though there was cause for it, as the war had ended). As for the Marines who had been fighting for years, losing fellow men in their platoons, they found themselves wondering what was next – they had known in their prime a life of repeated, senseless violence, desperate survival, death and loss in the most unimaginable gruelling conditions, and now they had to go back to “normal life”, when life could never quite be normal again.

No doubt this mini series has made me appreciate our time of (relative) peace, but it has also reminded me not to forget those who are still at war in so many places. Again, it’s one of those things that can so easily overwhelm us (and in a way, it should, as the problem is so serious and so vast), but we should not lose heart. Let’s urge our government leaders and all those in high positions to work towards real, lasting peace, and in our own lives, work hard towards reconciliation.