Ryan Gosling Wants To Raise Hope For Congo | TakePart - Inspiration to Action.
The world may be ignoring the ongoing war in the Congo — the world's deadliest, with more than 5 million killed — but that isn't stopping Ryan Gosling from speaking out to help the cause.
The Blue Valentine star recently returned from a trip to eastern Congo with The Enough Project, and shared the images he captured for the video above to help promote the Raise Hope For Congo campaign.
And he's telling encouraging everyone to join the Enough Project in pressuring the world's 21 biggest electronics companies to stop using minerals mined from the conflict zones in the smartphones, laptops and other gadgets that power our daily lives.
While conflict minerals didn't start the war in the Congo, they're playing a large role in perpetuating the violence, as armed groups wage bloody battles over control of mining areas.
"The bottom line here is this: if you demand conflict-free products, they will supply them, just like with the blood diamonds campaign that ended that deadly trade and helped stop three wars in West Africa," Gosling wrote at The Huffington Post.
SOURCE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-gosling/congos-conflict-minerals-_b_854023.html
We recently traveled together to Congo, where the deadliest war in the world is occurring. During the trip, Ryan made this video, "Raise Hope for Congo."
(Special thanks to musician James Blake for the use of his track, "Lindisfarne I.")
It's a war which most people know nothing about, despite the fact that we're all directly connected to it. Armed groups are fighting over the lucrative minerals that power our cell phones and laptops, leaving a trail of human destruction that has no equal globally since World War II.
We spent most of our time in Congo talking with survivors of this silent war. We wanted to know what they experienced, and what messages they might have for those of us who have come to rely on cell phones and laptops that inadvertently connect us to Congo.
Marie is a rape survivor twice over. She has overcome her suffering to found a women's organization that helps others who have survived sexual crimes. We asked her what message she would have for electronics companies. "Please stop this bloody business," she pleaded. "You are fueling conflict. Families are being torn apart. Women are being raped. Communities are being destroyed so armed groups can profit from mines. Companies should stop supporting this and do ethical business."
The conflict in Congo has left millions homeless, fleeing from their villages after they have been burnt to the ground or looted by armed groups. In a camp for internally displaced people, we met Mapendo, a young woman who survived an attack on her village in which members of an armed militia went door to door raping women and killing men. In reply to our questions, she said starkly, "There is no difference between the phone companies and the people doing the killing here in Congo."
The president of one refugee camp told us, "The problem in Congo is greed. They should prosecute the greedy people, wherever they come from, who benefit from illegal minerals." A young man living in the camp named Innocent who had been driven from his home by an armed group taking over a nearby mine concluded, "The people that are doing this to me are the people who are making the phones that use these minerals."
Esther, another displaced camp resident, challenged us in a unique way: "I want the users of these minerals to come live in these camps with us so they can understand what we are going through." Finally, a 14 year old girl whom we befriended spoke with a level of clarity well beyond her years when she told us, "Anyone who buys a cell phone should question their conscience and insist on fair trade."
The truth of what we heard from survivors is rooted in simple economics. Profits made from this illicit minerals trade arise from market demand for such minerals. If consumers demand conflict-free products, then companies will eventually meet that demand, in turn cratering the market for minerals mined through violence.
Luckily, instead of just feeling guilty or even boycotting consumer electronics, there are things you can do, positive steps that will have an impact on this deadly trade in conflict minerals.
First, you can join the growing movement of people across the U.S. and beyond who are raising hope for Congo by directly contacting the 21 biggest electronics companies and demanding conflict-free products here. The Enough Project ranked the top companies on the actions they have taken on conflict minerals to date and found that two-thirds of them have done little to nothing. Many of them assert their conflict-free intentions, but with a few exceptions their actions haven't equaled their rhetoric. The bottom line here is this: if you demand conflict-free products, they will supply them, just like with the blood diamonds campaign that ended that deadly trade and helped stop three wars in West Africa.
Second, if you are connected to a college or high school, you can join the national drive for conflict-free campuses, in which students are leading efforts to convince school administrators to demand conflict-free products as well. Download the toolkit at RaiseHopeForCongo.org/campus.
Congo is the deadliest war in the world for a reason. For the last 150 years, the world has taken whatever it wanted from this country, from people who were enslaved for America's plantations, to ivory for our jewelry, to rubber for our automobile industry, to uranium for our atomic bombs, to today's conflict minerals for our cell phones, laptops and other products. Finally, a global people's movement has begun to be formed to stop this history of destructive extraction.
Now that you know, what will you do?
Ryan Gosling is an actor. John Prendergast is a co-founder of the Enough Project and author of Unlikely Brothers.
Visit RaiseHopeForCongo.org to find out how you can get involved.
The Campaign
The RAISE Hope for Congo campaign aims to build a permanent and diverse constituency of activists who will advocate for the protection and empowerment of Congolese women and girls. The Enough Project will collaborate with national, grassroots, and Congolese organizations, across various constituencies and the political spectrum, to build this grassroots movement.
The first step to building a movement is to raise awareness about the crisis in Congo. The campaign provides activists with informative tools to educate themselves and their communities about the conflict in eastern Congo and the epidemic of sexual violence against women and girls.
No matter how much we know or how much we care, we will only succeed if we speak out and demand action from our leaders. The campaign offers a menu of actions that activists can take to raise their voices and call for an end to the conflict and sexual violence in eastern Congo.
Despite the horrific scale of the violence, and the grave consequences of the conflict in Congo, we rarely see it on television, we seldom hear about it on the radio, and we hardly ever read about it in the newspapers. The campaign works with activists to raise the profile of the Congo conflict in the media and demand that the media shine a light on this invisible yet catastrophic crisis.
