Blood Diamond

I watched the movie ‘Blood Diamond’ on Thursday. A few pieces of it take place in Liberia. The rest of the film takes place in Sierra Leone, England, South Africa, and references the US from time to time. Of our audiences of seven here in Liberia, four were from the US (who imports 2/3rd of the worlds sold diamonds), one was South African who understood the Afrikaans that was spoken, one was British, and one was from Benin (the home country of the main actor) who had been in Sierra Leone in 2004 and talked with those who had ‘short sleeves’ and ‘long sleeves’ from the uncivil war.

Charles Taylor trained the rebel commander in Sierra Leone who oversaw the killing. Taylor sold the blood diamonds across the border into Liberia for the rebels, helping them to further finance their endeavours, and his. His trial for war crimes (17 counts) began two weeks ago.

Lord of War, Traffic, Syriana, Inconvenient Truth, Blood Diamond… powerful cinematography. Each has stirred me. They are just movies, but point to many of the veiled results of our current global community.

It was unique for me because for the first time, I am living in close vicinity to the communities that have been devastated from being on the short end of the stick. The soil is the same color here. The nationalities represented in the film were represented in our small group.

It isn’t a distant land over the horizon when you live here. Now, most of the passion that had welled up inside of me was gone when I woke up the next morning. It was more of a passing thought. But the reminders here do not go away. The stories live on. The bullet holes remain. The four brothers, of my taxi driver yesterday, who where killed in the war are still absent. And he still tells us about it freely if we simply ask.

On one hand, I have a world of watching and learning to do here. On the other hand, I must continue to engage such things. I am reminded of the quote that “we must read the Bible in one hand with the newspaper in the other”. My faith understanding and faith experience thus far, given my social context, speak loudly into life here greatly. Life here greatly speaks into my faith understanding and faith experience thus far, given my social context. May they continue to sharpen each other.

And for those of you who have seen the movie, yes, I continue to use my hand sanitizer.