Tonight we went to the cinema and watched Leo di Caprio et. al. in Blood Diamond. Not really aware of what we had to expect, we were eventually strongly touched by the picture and, like most of the people in the cinema, I guess, apalled by the main message of the movie, and the insight that it is difficult, if not to say impossible, for a single individual to change the course of things. As we left the cinema, which by the way was full of ignorants who really had the nerve to play with their mobiles (peasants!) while seeing innocent kids being transformed into war machines, Gordana and I ended up having a conversation about us never buying a single diamond. Well, I doubted that intention very strongly as most of us have short-lived memories and tend to accept the unacceptable by far too quickly; in particular when one oneself is not directly concerned by the course of events in other parts of the world. Now, does this make us ignorants? Does this mean we care more about the pursuit of our own happiness than about live and thus peace and sustainable development on this planet? How long does our bad conscience last? If we came to the conclusion that buying a diamond might not be politically correct, how long would we manage to stick to such an insight? A day or two, a week, a month? Well, at the end of the day, I believe most of us are concerned, sometimes appalled and even shocked about things that happen to the "Other", but it does not make us change, it does not make us get engaged and try to get people together to finally make this wonderful planet an even more wonderful and, most of all, peaceful place. Why do we shy away? Why are we so egocentric? Is life really only about ourselves? Or is it more important to make sure that the lately acquired mobile is working and that we posess the latest label, if not to say the latest piece from Van Cleef?
Tonight we went to the cinema and watched Leo di Caprio et. al. in Blood Diamond. Not really aware of what we had to expect, we were eventually strongly touched by the picture and, like most of the people in the cinema, I guess, apalled by the main message of the movie, and the insight that it is difficult, if not to say impossible, for a single individual to change the course of things. As we left the cinema, which by the way was full of ignorants who really had the nerve to play with their mobiles (peasants!) while seeing innocent kids being transformed into war machines, Gordana and I ended up having a conversation about us never buying a single diamond. Well, I doubted that intention very strongly as most of us have short-lived memories and tend to accept the unacceptable by far too quickly; in particular when one oneself is not directly concerned by the course of events in other parts of the world. Now, does this make us ignorants? Does this mean we care more about the pursuit of our own happiness than about live and thus peace and sustainable development on this planet? How long does our bad conscience last? If we came to the conclusion that buying a diamond might not be politically correct, how long would we manage to stick to such an insight? A day or two, a week, a month? Well, at the end of the day, I believe most of us are concerned, sometimes appalled and even shocked about things that happen to the "Other", but it does not make us change, it does not make us get engaged and try to get people together to finally make this wonderful planet an even more wonderful and, most of all, peaceful place. Why do we shy away? Why are we so egocentric? Is life really only about ourselves? Or is it more important to make sure that the lately acquired mobile is working and that we posess the latest label, if not to say the latest piece from Van Cleef?
3 comments:
Recently, flying from Zurich to Brussels, I met an Israeli guy working in the diamonds industry in Antwerp. He is not how one imagines a typical diamon trader, first of all he is not Hasidic Jew, he is a secular Israeli, he is not rich but rather poor (lower middle class in Israel) and he is not married with 10 kids and a 15 year old wife. He could not find a job in ISrael and the only option was to remain in his home town of Haifa, working in the grocery store of his parents, never having enough money to bye a house, just to rent it etc. He accepted the offer to go to Antwerp, now he travels a lot to africa, Sierra Leone, Congo etc. he learns French and Flemish (Dutch) and he hopes to find a nice girlfriend (future wife) and to obtain this he goes to the Sinagogue once in a while, an ordinary guy, is he bad because he is working in the diamond industry, not really, he is not aware of the bad image of diamond trade in the world because he does not really read newspapers and does not watch CNN, he just lives his life the best he can, is he personally responsible, not really, why am I telling this story, I just wanted to emphasise how we focus so much on diamond trade because its 'sexy' it attracts attention, but if ones decides to concentrate on any kind of trade in this part of the world (esspecially) you can call it blood trade in general...I haven't seen the film yet though, I am going to go tonight, I liked Di Caprio a lot in Scorssese's Departed, so I wanted to see if he is as good in this one, mind you I am sceptical because it is not a Scorssese movie, I think it is to a large extent director's merit that Leonardo plays his role so well. Best
I was curious, do Portugese dub in their cinema or do they have subtitles or it depends?
Well, let me reply to this, Srdji: no, the Portuguese do not dub their movies. They only add Portuguese subtitles and thus leave the original language intact. Notwithstanding, you can be sure that literally everybody stands up the moment the movie finishes....Gordana says: seljaci!
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