Rob Bates

Zwick on the Draw: Thoughts from the Rapaport Diamond Conference
February 8, 2007

I have quite a few thoughts about the Rapaport Diamond Conference that took place the other day. (Official website here.) There were two major criticisms of it: First, not enough actual Africans were present, and the dais was all white people discussing the fate of people far away. This point was brought up repeatedly during the conference -- in fact, it was repeated a bit too often -- but Rapaport was forthright in acknowledging the truth of it. One of the more impassioned comments during the day was from Rosalind Kainyah, De Beers' U.S. representative who grew up in Ghana. Clearly this industry needs more voices like hers.

The second was that nothing was really accomplished. Also true, but I will say that, when the conference did get down to brass tacks and became kind of development-wonky in the final session, people's attention drifted. It's not surprising that major complex policy decisions were not made in a room of 250 people. Some good ideas were floated, and Rapaport did a good job at putting the issue of alluvial diggers on the radar.

Other thoughts:

- There has been a lot of attention on the speech by "Blood Diamond" director Ed Zwick. I'm not going to comment extensively, as I hope to interview Zwick later this week. (And I stress I hope to. I've been hounding his office for some time, and when I met him on Monday, he very graciously agreed to give me an interview. But I haven't heard from his "people" since then. Hopefully, I can bring you something pretty soon.)

Anyway, despite what Radaronline reports today, the reaction to Zwick's speech was not particularly chilly, and most people I talked to were not only happy he decided to engage with the trade, but impressed by his eloquence and Harvard-grad vocabulary. (Also, Radar, the audience was not "largely Orthodox.")

There was some discussion whether Zwick said the trade owed "reparations" or "restitution" to Sierra Leone. My notes clearly say restitution, but I think the "reparations" idea came when Zwick brought up the Holocaust (see Radar for the exact quote). The Holocaust stuff seems to have upset people more in retrospect than it did at the time; I didn't even include it in my report, because I thought it was besides the point. I get uncomfortable with Holocaust references -- see Godwin's Law -- particularly when you are addressing an industry that was so devastated by it.  Later, the panel started bickering over that point, and Rapaport wisely moved on, realizing it was an emotionally charged debate that wasn't going to get anybody anywhere.

I am not crazy about the words "reparations" or "restitution" -- we are, after all, talking about an industry of ten million people -- but this trade definitely has a "responsibility" to the people of Sierra Leone and the other conflict diamond countries, who to this day supply a good deal of our product. This industry has been pretty good at giving charity to Southern Africa, but West Africa has been kind of a neglected stepchild as far as charity is concerned, and we really should devote more of our charitable efforts there. (Like can't Jewelers for Children do something for Sierra Leone? Yes, people may slam it as PR, but it's the right thing to do.)

- Global Witness did seem to answer my Jewish grandmotherly plea from last week: "Would it kill you to say something nice." Alex Yearsley, in a surprisingly menschy speech, described Kimberley as a "remarkable achievement" that everyone can be "proud" of. Of course, World Diamond Council chairman Eli Izhakoff  later noted those sentiments were very different than what Global Witness said during "Blood Diamond" publicity season -- and, indeed, there is a pretty major disconnect between calling Kimberley a "remarkable achievement" and saying it's "full of loopholes," as Global Witness did in December. Even using generous interpretations of that language, it's hard to reconcile those two statements. So the question is: Why does GW use different language before the trade and before consumer media? I think I know the answer, but it's kind of disconcerting.

- Just to be even-handed in my criticism, many tradespeople on the panel seemed spoiling for a fight and a little defensive, in a way that probably hurt the trade's cause rather than helped it.  I agree with some of what they had to say, but both sides probably need to take a deep breath. Indeed, it was amusing to see Rapaport in the unlikely role of mediator between the two sides. He's not a man who typically sugar-coats his language -- as anyone who saw him at last night's DMIA meeting can attest -- but he generally did a good job at keeping things from degenerating into finger-pointing.

In any event, Rapaport's conference wasn't perfect, but it was a good start at putting these issues on the table. Your comments are welcome.

Posted by Rob Bates on February 8, 2007 | Comments (0)