Blood Diamond

Last night I sat through the movie Blood Diamond with Jimbo. It was disturbing. REALLY disturbing. I didn't know if I was going to be able to get through it, as two minutes into it, innocent people (men, women, children, babies) in a little African village were getting shot up and the hands of young boys were getting whacked off by groups of rebels, and the country's military were blowing everyone to bits because nobody knew who was a rebel and who wasn't.

First I was thankful that I live in a country where such a thing just doesn't happen, and then I started to feel a little guilty. I don't live every day on the run, in fear for my life or the life of my child. I don't live in fear of being snatched up and enslaved into dirty, bloody work, mining for something of substantial worth to people in other countries who have no idea how it comes to be, so to speak.

I looked down at my left hand and wondered . . . how do you KNOW if you're wearing a "Conflict Diamond" or not? How do you KNOW if the fancy little must-haves that we all pine for haven't come at an unthinkable cost for someone else? And what about other things? Like my tennis shoes maybe? Did some little 12 year old kid in a 3rd world country make them in some dirty sweat shop? The more I thought about it, the guiltier I felt!

It was certainly a thought provoking flick.