War’s Diamonds

Recently I watched again a movie called ‘’Blood Diamond’’. The main topic addressed in the movie is the way diamond’s companies benefit and maintain the civil war in Sierra Leone - one of the most important diamond producer in the world – to gain money and serve their cupidity. The movie shows how RUF, the rebel group opposed to the government, kidnaps people and force them to work in diamond mines to finance their guerilla, uproot children to their family and train them to be soldiers and how they install the terror by amputating people of a hand to discourage them to vote.

My main concern about this drama is about these diamond companies aware of the situation and harboring the system. How are they able to ignore the atrocities happening and finance them? The worst of the paradox is that we are all concerned as potential buyer.

To limit the escalation of the drama caused, a treaty has been signed in 1999 during the Kimberley Process t prohibit the sale of diamonds coming firm war areas. Nevertheless it is estimated that at least 4% of the diamonds circulating on the markets are still coming from war zones.

For a better control and respect of the treaty, it is our individual responsibility to enquire about the origin of the diamond before buying it

Networking

I heard an interesting talk last week about the networking activities like Facebook, Twitter and their bad effects on the social life and the construction of the personality.

FaceBook (FB) was created in 2004 by Marc Zuckergerg with the idea in mind to offer Harvard graduates to remain in touch after starting their job careers.

Today it is estimated that 300 millions people – approximately US population- are connected. It was said that 43% of young people of less than 18 years old recognize to sped more than 4 hours a day networking.

The question debated was: why do people need this kind of virtual exposure? Why do they prefer virtual communication to normal face to face relationships? Is it the only and last chance for people to comfort themselves they exist?

I think Networking activities like Facebook, MySpace… success is a sign of something happening in the society. People prefer talking with their computer and harbors the idea of being part of a community. The more the friends they have, the more comfortable they feel.

I think this tool can be very useful as long as you keep control of the information disclosed and if you are able to maintain a normal social life.

The Paradox of a star death

This journal entry was created on 09/12/09

Many things have been said and written about Michael Jackson’s death. As for me, I read a very interesting article this summer in French Express that caught my attention. This article makes an interesting parallel between Michael Jackson’s life, that is between the 20^th and 21th century and the evolution of the society we are living in. Here is a quote from the article that summarizes pretty well the main idea (I translated it myself so it might be an imperfect one): ‘’ This characteristic (search of himself) lead the singer […] toward an undetermined sexuality and a physical appearance full of tricks. No longer have characteristics, identity, gender: the mondialization also produced this collective desire of highest hybridizing to be a little of everybody and have a chance to become someone, to be compatible with everyone in order to count for someone. Thus we prefer to transform ourselves than to assume our differences. ‘’

I totally agree with this idea of mondialization that produces this desire to be physically alike. Just by looking around you, you can notice that our world almost relies on appearances: you need to have a big and pretty house with a pretty nice car and pretty clothes to be well considered in the society.

The article also says that the death of death of a star like Michael Jackson is not the end of a career but more the beginning of a myth.

After reading the article, I thought a while about that and I realized that all great stars like Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Marylin Monroe had been criticized for the opinions they had, what they did and how they lived their lives, but after their death, the world begins to idolize them and they become myth that never die.

Isolation

This is the journal created on 09/12/09.

For my summer reading assignment, I selected a book called Chess Story by Stefan Zweig. This is about the strength of isolation and its impact on human being and how it inevitably leads to alienation. As a brief summary, the book tells the story of an Austrian lawyer that had been imprisoned by the Gestapo during the Second World War for possessing important information concerning the Royal Family. The key point of the story is how Gestapo used the infinite power of isolation as a psychological torture. Dr. B., the Austrian lawyer, who was deprived of any intellectual support during his detention, slowly became alienated.

After finishing this book I stopped a minute and thought about this simple but extremely powerful torture. How privation of any intellectual support and distraction may inescapably conduct the healthiest person to alienation?

Finally, I came to the conclusion that intellectual support was as important for the mind as food for the body: lack of food may lead to the physical death and lack of intellectual activity to psychological death.