TIGblogs - Amanda Lassoued

This TIG Blog is a result of a discussion board post about movie with a message. All movies have messages and one film that needs to be seen is the movie Blood Diamonds. Here is the story for the film. "Set against the backdrop of civil war and chaos in 1990's Sierra Leone, Blood Diamond is the story of Danny Archer- a South African mercenary - and Solomon Vandy- a Mende fisherman. Both men are African, but their histories as different as any can be, until their fates become joined in a common quest to recover a rare pink diamond that can transform their lives. While in prison for smuggling, Archer learns that Solomon - who was taken from his family and forced to work in the diamond fields - has found and hidden the extraordinary rough stone. With the help of Maddy Bowen, an American journalist whose idealism is tempered by a deepening connection with Archer, the two men embark on a trek through rebel territory, a journey that could save Solomon's family and give Archer the second chance he thought he would never have."
A blood diamond can also be called a conflict diamond or a war diamond and when referred to it is a diamond mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading army's war efforts.
This issue is an important one and is starting to get its spectators now. Now making a movie on it, news specials and even in songs. Rapper Kanye West raised the issue of conflict “blood” diamonds in his song “Diamonds” Conflict diamonds, diamonds mined and traded by rebel groups, have been the source of murder and mutilation in the small, west-African country of Sierra Leone.

In the song, West voices his own inner conflict with diamonds:
See, a part of me say keep shinin’
How? When I know what a “Blood Diamond” is …

In his video, West takes his message even further. The video takes viewers into dimly lit diamond mines, where children are forced to mine for “small bits of carbon that have no intrinsic value in themselves, and no value whatsoever to the average Sierra Leonean beyond their attraction to foreigners.”

According to a report by Partnership Africa Canada (P.A.C.), “upwards of 50,000 [have been] killed, half the population displaced, and more than two-thirds of its already severely limited infrastructure destroyed.” Meanwhile, the underground trade of illicit diamonds is booming. Conflict diamonds are valued “between 4 percent and 15 percent of the world total” and generate annual trade revenues of $7.5 billion.

This issue needs to be discussed and known. Most people don't even know what a blood diamond it, but maybe we can finally do something with this issue. This needs to stop, many innocent lives are lost over a diamond. This article is meant to make you ponder, so do that and discuss, do what you feel is right.