Killing Congolese Babies for our Tech Toys
At times in life when the problem seems so large and the resistance to the idea seems insurmountable its tempting to just call everybody else out as being wrong and then remove oneself from the discussion. In Australia we call that taking our bat and going home… but its hardly the conversation for adults.
So I have to say this much… I’ve contacted a number of influencial people and organisations asking them to somehow acknowledge the issue but it looks like Zeldman doesn’t care, Boing Boing doesn’t care – and they’re right, the American-EU-Australian-Asian consumers don’t care about the 45,000 dead every month in the Congo to fund our obsession with cheap technology consumerism. We simply turn our backs en-masse, much like the good German’s did during World War 2, and let the other people pay with their lives for our peaceful night’s sleep.
But its endemic to where we’ve come with our two Gods – consumerism and economics. Things, after all, must be consumed so that more factories can be made to produce more things for the consumer… our world needs Congolese coltan to make tantulum to then produce tantulum capacitors (and other things) which in turn gives us cheaper and better mobile phones and stereos and computers. Those less fortunate 6 million dead over the last 12 years, a half of them children under 5 years of age, become dead bodies directly through our shiny new IT accessory purchases. We, the consumers, drive the demand for the products that lead to the killing in the Congo. Its a simple war of economics and business rationalisation.
But as that purchase makes you feel all warm and cosy in your bed at night spare a thought to the 10 year old boy soldier who was forced into that hole in the ground to bring your precious coltan to the surface. Spare a thought to the slavery and murder and attrocities being committed at that very moment in your name – the western IT consumer. What can you do?
- upgrade your tech only when the old tech fails to work
- write to Sony, Siemens, Nokia and other tech companies demanding a Congo-free supply chain
- pass the word around and around until people take responsibility for their everyday actions
The Congo War has killed more people than any other conflict since World War 2. Blood is on our hands. Every SMS drips life onto the concrete and grass at our feet. Every SMS makes us complicit in the rapes and mutilations. The question, how complicit as an individual are we willing to become? Maybe we don’t want to hear this right now, maybe Zeldman and Boing Boing and the others are perfectly correct. After all, why should the 60 million people in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) deserve personal security and freedom?
Let’s stop the Congo War being our dirty little secret. Its time to break the silence.
[The image below is from Marcus Bleasdale's Rape of a Nation]
