This team of filmmakers found out. Now they want to show you. Director Seth Chase explains more:

As a team of independent filmmakers, the crew is now running a Kickstarter crowdsourcing campaign

to raise the final funds they need to get the documentary made. If you’d like to make a contribution,

you can do so by following this link. Make sure to check out the bunch of exclusive rewards up for

grabs in return for any pledge made, all the way up to a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Congo!

Bonus video!

You can see more of the team’s videos by checking out their website here, and you can keep up to

date with their progress and thoughts on all things Congo, activism, mining & policy by following

them on Twitter here.

Seth & Ben filming

Please support the film!

The post Obama’s Law appeared first on EcoHustler.

By Ben Radley

Congolese miners at a tin mine in the eastern DRC

Since the beginning of the first Congo War in 1996, and particularly since the coltan boom of the early noughties, numerous international organisations – including the United Nations – have documented the rise of armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that control the production and export of minerals as a means to raise revenue.

More recently, powerful advocacy organisations launched a campaign connecting this phenomenon to the electronics used in our daily lives, helping to coin the terms ‘blood mobiles’ and ‘conflict minerals’. The most notable of these organisations, the Enough Project in Washington D.C., recruited a plethora of celebrities to help promote the campaign’s message, including Ryan Gosling and Nicole Richie (see videos below).

The campaign was and continues to be a huge success. In 2010, US Congress responded to the pressure and passed a law requiring all companies registered on the US stock exchange to prove that minerals they source from the Congo are not financing armed conflict. Earlier this year Canada passed similar legislation, and the European Union is set to follow suit in 2014.

Yet while the campaign narrative plays well into Western stereotypes of greedy African savages raping women while high on dope and opium, it’s only a partial analysis of the situation, mistaking symptoms of conflict for causes. In reality, cleaning up the Congo’s mineral supply chains has about as much to do with building peace for the African nation as David Cameron and hugging hoodies has to do with building a fairer and more equal Britain. Nadda.

Working conditions are tough, but artisanal mining provides an essential livelihood to millions in the Congo

To paraphrase Congo political analyst Jason Stearns, minerals are not what the conflict was about at the beginning, and they’re certainly not what the conflict is about today. Armed groups in the DRC are not fighting over access to and control of minerals as an end in itself, but as a means to finance their operations to address other grievances, namely unresolved political issues pertaining to land, citizenship and territorial boundaries.

More importantly still, anything that makes money is a target for armed groups. The eastern DRC is a war economy. Timber, charcoal, palm oil, cannabis, poaching, illegal taxation of populations, road checkpoints. Cleaning up one of these sectors without addressing the conflict’s root causes simply shifts the violence and extortion elsewhere. The M23, perhaps the most well-known armed group in the eastern DRC today, does not seek to control mining areas or attack mines.

Lastly, Congolese state officials are today responsible for the largest part of all human rights violations.[i] These same officials are now being empowered and entrusted to determine whether a mine’s minerals are fit for export to the international market. One rotten apple is simply being replaced with another. Until serious political reform takes place, it is difficult to see how punitive measures focusing on the eastern Congo’s mineral sector – the single largest employer in the region after agriculture – will lead to an improvement in the daily lives of the Congolese.

Of further concern is that the conflict minerals approach has nothing to say to the environmental costs of mining or our mass consumption of electronics. In fact, it encourages the establishment of industrial mining in place of the often less environmentally damaging practice of artisanal mining, as the closed supply chains operated by industrial mines are more easily able to conform to the requirements of mineral certification imposed by conflict minerals legislation than the open and complex supply chains of artisanal mining.

Livelihoods are lost at the risk of greater environmental damage and increased capital flight. This is the mining future the eastern DRC now faces, and indeed, the social and economic devastation caused by conflict minerals legislation in the region has been well documented.[ii]

This is perhaps largely why the conflict minerals agenda has gained so much traction in political circles. It provides politicians with their favourite magic formula of a humanitarian campaign holding the promise of great change which actually – by failing to address critical political, structural and environmental issues – promises nothing more than business as usual. And we all know, that’s no longer an option.

So, what are the options then? Here’s a few alternative approaches that might bring more meaningful and constructive results:

• Westerners looking to have an ethical consumer footprint should look to consume less and push hard for corporations to put in place circular supply chains – i.e. taking back old phones and reusing the minerals – and reduce the practice of built-in obsolescence, rather than making simplistic demands for action in a complex war-torn region.
• Westerners wanting to support the Congolese people should read this article on reclaiming activism from the policy lobbyists in Washington D.C., London and elsewhere, and follow its three core principles: activism should be undertaken in partnership with affected people, under their leadership; activism should seek truth and speak truth; activism should challenge power.

Against these basic standards, the celebrity-led campaign for change in the Congo has – in different measures and at different times – come up short. It’s time for a new kind of advocacy. One that speaks truth to power, not half-truths on behalf of power.

—-

The team behind this article are making a film. Obamas Law is going off HERE

Early morning at a small mining village in the eastern DRC

The post Conflict Minerals – Unexpected Truth from the Congo appeared first on EcoHustler.

The post Nature. Beauty. Gratitude. appeared first on EcoHustler.

Reclaim The Streets party, held in London’s Trafalgar Square, 1997

Peace, A Natural State is the preface to a new a new book by Gregory Sams called The State is Out of Date

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. Thomas Paine’s introduction to Common Sense – 1776

Slavery was thought normal throughout the world until recent centuries; sex between men and boys was fine for ancient Greeks; for centuries it was tradition to bind women’s feet in China; for two thousand years we thought the whole universe rotated around planet Earth; for more than two centuries we have believed that democratic politics could make big government serve its citizens. Once a belief or practice endures through enough generations it is endowed with the validity of tradition and considered normal. Our trusting response to traditional practice is like the naive belief of young children that adults must know what they are doing, simply because they have been doing it for so long. Even something as bizarre as war is considered normal behavior simply because, after a few thousand years, it has assumed the cloak of tradition.

As a young boy growing up in the wake of World War II, I remember thinking it perfectly plausible that if one person could bring about a great World War, as Hitler had recently done, then it must be possible for one person to bring about a great World Peace. I know better now.

Zoroaster, Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, and other prophets and interpreters of spiritual truth have given us some great pointers to inner peace, but the religions that organized after they died have not brought peace and brotherhood to mankind. Indeed, the Abrahamic three have caused a great deal of strife, squabbling over details of just what their same God said to Whom, while believing that if we all followed their chosen version of His word, only then would we achieve global peace and harmony. But people are different, times change, and morality is best developed from within.

Like many, I hoped that some inspired leader would come along, political or spiritual, to get the ball rolling in the right direction and unite us all behind their positive policies. Perhaps a combination of Christ, Gandhi, John Kennedy, and Hypatia of Alexandria would do the trick, provided this composite character could live forever. In despair of this miracle ever arising on Earth, some even anticipate imminent alien contact with a Ten Commandments type of scenario broadcast simultaneously in all languages to all televisions, cell phones, social networks, and radios across the globe. But would even this, an ultimatum from outer space, do the job?

The state’s priorities will not change. As we will see, self-interest, self- survival and self-advancement will always be the primary concerns of any ruler or government. In a democracy, the next election will always be the politician’s foremost consideration, and the short-term interests of society will take a poor second best, with our long-term interests hardly considered. When a government is said to be “in power” it holds that power for the simple reason that it is able to make us do or not do that which it decides is in our best, or its best, interest. Whether this power was won in a political bun fight or acquired through military force often makes little difference in the long run. Once a new state is seen to have a firm grip upon the reins of power, the world will recognize it and welcome it to the family of nations.

There are more questions than answers in this book. This is not a pessimistic view, but one based on the premise that our current methods of attacking the problems of the world actually block the emergence of organic working solutions. Nor will every aspect of every subject be aired, or copious examples delivered on every principle. The intention is to stir the pot rather than draft a finished recipe with measured ingredients. If I were to cite evidence supporting each point or assertion, then many of these chapters would fill a book of their own.. You can view this book as a jigsaw puzzle with a few of the pieces missing. The picture is there, and as you see it you will be in a better position to fill in the missing pieces yourself.

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. Albert Einstein

 

Preface to The State Is Out Of Date – We Can Do It Better, Gregory Sams ©2013

Gregory Sams photographed by Alan Davies

 

 

The post Peace, A Natural State appeared first on EcoHustler.

For more on the film check www.thehappymovie.com
If you like this you might like the Green and Happy page.

What makes you happy? From the filmmakers who brought you Long Night’s Journey Into Day, Beyond the Call, and the Oscar nominated Genghis Blues, comes a global journey across countries and continents in a search for humanity’s most elusive emotion. HAPPY seeks to share the wisdom of traditional cultures and the cutting edge science that is now, for the first time, exploring human happiness. Through powerful interviews, we explore what makes people happy across the world. Directed by – Roko Belic Executive Producer – Tom Shadyac Produced by – Eiji Shimizu, Frances Reid, Roko Belic

FREE LONDON SCREENING

7pm on the 10th May

@ The Hub, Kings Cross, 34b York Way, London N1 9AB, UK

Email Bex for tickets

The post Happiness the Movie appeared first on EcoHustler.

For more information check out: www.collective-evolution.com

The post The SHIFT Project – Are You Ready? appeared first on EcoHustler.