It has been a while I watched to the documentary The Ivory Game, about the ivory illegal market, the cruel murder of elephants in Africa and all the money some dirty people make from it. The images show attacks, traps and animals in an outrageous situation: a carcass thrown in the wild. The production investigates gangs which exterminate these beautiful animals in the middle of the night, with no mercy, and sell their ivory to the biggest market in this business: China. So, there, they are transformed in fancy and expensive pieces, symbol of wealth and power for the buyers.
This documentary made me think about another “show off” product which is a bit closer to my reality and is harmful as much as to have an ivory ornament on the shelf. I am getting closer to the best phase of my life, as some “scientific” studies say, when people start to get married, to have kids and built a life. Well, in the last two years I have seen couple of friends with that wished stone on their fingers, the one it is not only a mineral, but carries plenty of meanings. I would be lying if I said I haven’t had a shine for them or I haven’t wished one. It is the desire inserted in the culture I live in, it is my ivory: the symbol of “power” and “success”.
Who has never seen a group of women in a circle admiring this solitaire on the hand of one of them? I have watched to Blood Diamond few years ago and after the whole ivory’s story my brain made this instant connection between them. I was blaming and convicting all the rich people pointed in the documentary for funding elephant’s murders, “those selfish bastards only interested in show off to others”, kept repeating in my consciousness. But then, how different it is to desire a diamond? The stone which has funded three civil wars and killed 4 million people in 90’s. I went searching to get myself acquitted.
Failed! After the diamond’s scandal, when the information that the stones were funding civil wars spread, the Kimberly certificate was created, in 2003, a strategy to control the source and legitimacy of each diamond exported. It helped, it is true, but didn’t end the illegal extraction. in places such as Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe, people still being killed, the slavery continues, and the dirt will persist as long as we have dreams about the precious ring. These data were not new for me, but it was the first time I had this reflection about a superficial wish I had and how the consuetude can dazzle some facts.
