Blood In The Mobile

Yesterday I went with some friends to watch an acclaimed Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) documentary from 2010, "Blood in the mobile", directed by Frank Piasecki Poulsen. The documentary exposed the many horrors of the civil wars in Democratic Republic of Congo being financed by the electronics industry through the trade of minerals used for mobile phones and computers. It brought a huge human-rights problem to the attention of many unsuspecting users worldwide, however the movie itself was lacking and not very powerful as far as documentaries go. There was great potential, considering how much work is being done about this issue all over the world, but this film failed to meet the expectations.

Poulsen travels all over the world trying to talk to Nokia people (he focuses on this one company, as it is one of the largest. He usually got to talk to those who didn't make decisions); going to the illegal Bisie mine in Kivu, DRC, where the mineral casserite is obtained under extremely poor safety conditions; talking to various experts in mineral tracking and conflict minerals; and including politicians working towards having conflict minerals become illegal in the US. The questions he asked the interviewees often lacked the depth required to sound like he had done the appropriate research about conflict minerals beforheand. It seemed he just wanted to get the movie done and get the footage he needed for it, and although yes, the footage he got from inside the mine was very interesting and a great journalistic achievement, it was extremely irresponsible for him to take that boy, Chance, down with him to tour him around, especially considering all the negative reactions as the boy helped the 'white man'. Who knows what happened to Chance after he left?

It was saddening to see that although large companies have been aware about these issues for more than a decade, not much has been achieved in solving this massive problem, and I hope having this movie out there will speed up things. Of course, it all comes down to consumers and what WE demand. The Raise Hope For Congo website contains information about the terrible war going on far, far away, but so, so close at the same time, surrounding us, under my fingers as I'm typing this, and everyday as I use my phone. It explains what consumers can do about the problem, and it's a good resource to start off with if you want to become more informed about the place where people live under extreme conditions resembling slavery, where children stay inside mines for days due to the difficulty of going down. Down these poorly-built mines that collapse and kill people every day. Deaths that finance an inhumane war that leads to even more deaths. And suffering that cannot be explained through words.