Raising a Middle Finger to Africa

My colleague Carrie has an excellent post about Global Witness’ criticisms of the “Raise Your Right Hand for Africa” campaign – recently parroted by Ed Zwick — but I have a few things I want to add.

I, like most people involved in this issue, have known Global Witness for eight years. I like the people there, think they have caused some excellent changes in the industry and for the most part respect them. But sometimes when I read their quotes, I feel like an old Jewish grandmother: Would it kill you to say something nice?

Yes, there is more than a whiff of PR about the “Raise Your Right Hand for Africa” campaign. And I am not sure it is smart PR-wise for the industry to be mentioning Africa at this time. But I remember when the NGOs used to slam the industry for not giving enough to  charity. Now the industy is doing so and getting slammed again? By the way, when Alex Yearsley was at Russell Simmons' press conference, he praised Simmons' "Green Initiative," which also had more than a whiff of PR about it. How is that campaign any different than this one? Was he insincere then — or now?

Maybe I’m missing something, but I can’t see anything wrong with this campaign. It's giving money to African causes. That’s a good thing. How could anyone possibly be against that? Zwick contends that charity is "best done in private." Doesn’t that call into doubt every star-studded Hollywood fund-raiser? As well as all Zwick's talk here?

I, like others who have been sympathetic to Global Witness over the years, are beginning to wonder what’s happened to them. Here are some excerpts from a statement, delivered just one year ago, by Global Witness’ Harrison Mitchell at the World Diamond Council meeting in Sicily:

The KP has made enormous progress in a very short space of time, which is a credit to all involved. These first three years have seen a lot of work to establish the process, putting the systems in place and establishing the relationships necessary to make the systems work.

We at Global Witness feel positive … that all of us within the Kimberley Process whether governments, the diamond industry or civil society, can work constructively to make the KP a truly world class system …

We hope that we can continue to work constructively together to protect the legitimate diamond trade and ensure that diamonds are conflict-free.

Now that’s the kind of spirit and language that actually accomplishes things. And yet hearing those kinds of words would be unimaginable today. Of course, Mitchell (who is no longer with the group) had some criticisms, but they were constructive and intelligent ones. By contract, the group’s remarks about Kimberley at its press conference last month were neither constructive nor particularly intelligent. And the irony, of course, is Kimberley is stronger today than it was a year ago.

Look, as I said, I admire many things GW has done.  But their own web site says they want to make diamonds "a positive force for development."  And yet almost everything they have done this year runs counter to that goal, because a product can't be force for development if you've killed the market for it. It really seems like, ever since the movie came on the scene, Global Witness has become less about promoting meaningful change and more about promoting themselves.