Eve Ensler and "Rape-Free" Gadgets

sworm

#1 – 11:33 AM May 28, 2009

Our thirst for new cellphones and the minerals required to make them, are what helped the Congo war continue for so long.

Death toll: 5.5 million.

But hey, I really NEED a new phone to twitter all the banalities of my meaningless consumer existence.

Bah. Humanity is overrated.

sworm

#2 – 11:37 AM May 28, 2009

Also: this is a typical example of
commodity fetishism

I bet no one who reads will remember this next time they buy some gadget that they'll use for a year at the most.

Rob Miller

#3 – 12:34 PM May 28, 2009

I think "Cruelty Free" could probably be extended to other minerals.

Snorky

#4 – 12:37 PM May 28, 2009

Yes, because the first thing that leaps into my head when I pick up a gadget, or when I buy anything, is that I would not be purchasing it unless there were atrocities intimately linked to its creations. As a consumer, I only reward atrocities when I make my purchasing decisions. I can recall with great satisfaction all of those companies I drove out of business who refused to commit the atrocities I demanded be linked to the production of the wares I purchase.

Perhaps it is not the consumer who is to blame, Eve Ensler, but the rapacious executives who are always looking to maximize profits by any means necessary.

If this weren't the case, wouldn't they offer us a choice between rape-produced and rape-free brands? They don't even want us to think about such things. Nor do they, themselves, want to think about such things.

Wolfrick

#5 – 12:43 PM May 28, 2009

If there are "rape camps" enforcing discipline among a slave workforce, then international attention needs to be focused on the situation, regardless of the products produced.
Another point about the depletion of minerals; remember, these discarded items aren't being shot into the sun. As soon as it is profitable to do so, the landfills will be mined, probably by autonomous robotic "moles" to recover and sort all the useful stuff we've just thrown away for over a hundred years. It's gone, but not forgotten, here on Spaceship Earth.

chas warner

#6 – 12:58 PM May 28, 2009

The fact that the Congolese rape each other really doesn't have anything to do with our consumption. One of the sillier things I've seen on BoingBoing

Brandon West

#7 – 1:00 PM May 28, 2009

Right, and the Middle East would be all sunshine and lollipops and unicorn farts if it weren't for the oil.

Anonymous Anonymous

#8 – 1:06 PM May 28, 2009

Not to diminish the argument that ethical production is necessary, but can anyone find corroboration that 20% of the world's Ta comes from the Congo?

gnosis

#9 – 1:11 PM May 28, 2009

Thanks for this.

Poustman

#10 – 1:17 PM May 28, 2009

"We create those atrocities through our consumption," says Ensler.

What bollocks. The cause she is talking about deserves attention, global outrage, intervention, horror, etc.

So should we evaluate the cause-- and our response to it-- based on her advocacy or not?

dbcooper

#11 – 1:33 PM May 28, 2009

Very little tantalum is produced from Congolese ore, ~ 1% of world production according to the USGS, IIRC. Most of the tantalum is produced by Australia and Canada.

Consumers/Gadget-Co's are not driving "rape camps in the Congo." The people who run them there are doing that. A lot of horrible stuff happens in Africa, should you be checking every component of everything you own for the slight possibility that there is a connection?

shadowfirebird

#12 – 1:35 PM May 28, 2009

Um, Tantalum capacitors? How the hell do you avoid buying products with those in?

They're in *everything*. Well, probably not torches and vibrators. But everything else.

Granted, there are other ways of making a capacitor. But short of opening up every electronic product *before* you buy it, there isn't going to be much the consumer can do about this one.

Wim L

#13 – 2:01 PM May 28, 2009

It's worth noting that many large manufacturers (eg Nokia) already go out of their way to source their tantalum capacitors from elsewhere, and have been doing this for years. The atrocities in the Congo driven by the demand for tantalum capacitors is not news to the electrical engineering community, either. (And despite the nice properties of tants as compact high frequency bypasses, they have some downsides, too, like their tendency to catch fire with little provocation.)

Anonymous Anonymous

#14 – 2:34 PM May 28, 2009

Wow, BB Gadgets is a harsh crowd today. Yes, it is true that DRC is only acknowledged to produce 1% of the world's tantalum. By that simple number some here seem ready to dismiss this. Since the DRC is shunned by most countries most of its' tantalum is smuggled out to neighboring countries. So that number is probably low. But it is not what percent of the international supply the DRC produces but rather how much income it brings to the various fighting factions. In the year 2000, the price of tantalum increased 5 fold to nearly $275/pound. This has translated to millions of dollars in income for this "small" miner of the mineral. The Rwandans back back some of the rebels there and were making as much as $20M a month from tantalum in 2000.

Correct the consumers are not 'driving' the rape camps in the sense that they don't ask for them to occur. But by ignoring who we buy from we do provide an income source to the military forces that are running these rape camps. Do you knowingly buy stolen goods, since you didn't "force" the seller to steal them?

All she is trying to do here is raise awareness. The goal is not to declare you guilty. It is to push companies to try to build a system that reduces the funding that electronics indirectly provide to the war in Congo. Diamond mining has a much more rigorous tracking process from similar pressure. It is not perfect but better. 5.4M have been killed in the Congo since 1998. It is the most deadly conflict since WWII. They can't keep killing or they will run out of labor. Instead they make "rape camps" to drive their labor force.

Drew Blood

#15 – 3:44 PM May 28, 2009

Lot of defeatists and responsibility shirkers here. 2 things the average consumer can do are make some noise about the issue and demand to know who sources from where, and celebrate those companies that take an interest in this issue, like Wim did above.

I don't know that the average consumer would take the time to research this but if there was a site listing this sort of information, most of us read a few links before pulling the trigger on a gadget anyway. One more wouldn't be a big deal.

ivan256

#16 – 3:53 PM May 28, 2009

Responsibility shirkers?

These people aren't being raped to produce Tantalum. They're being raped to produce labor. Are you somehow arguing that the value of labor can be diminished? Is diminishing the value of Congolese labor actually a solution here?

Face it. This is a cultural issue in Congo that we have zero influence over as individual consumers from the outside short of banding together to starve them all to death. This needs to be handled through international politics and diplomacy.

No matter what your mother told you, sometimes you really just can't make a difference yourself.

S.R.Hadden

#17 – 5:01 PM May 28, 2009

ivan256,

I think you (and others) might be equivocating on 'responsibilty'.

On one sense, an individual is responsible if the responsible individual can be *blamed* for the offense. On another sense, an individual is responsible individual is morally *liable* for the offense.

Let us suppose that the rapes would be occurring in the Congo regardless of whether we purchased products manufactured using the labor which the rapes are allegedly used to enforce.

Even if this is true, it is not relevant to the second sense of moral responsibilty -- by knowingly purchasing products that are manufactured using labor motivated by rape, the individual purchasing the product can be, to a degree, morally liable for the atrocities. That is, you don't have to cause the rapes to bear a degree of morally liable for them. It might be enough if you willingly benefit from the rapes.

The upshot is that whether you can "make a difference yourself" is not necessarily relevant to the issue of moral liability. The issue of what causes the rapes is distinct from the liability you bear in virtue of knowingly benefiting from the rapes.

S.R.Hadden

#18 – 5:05 PM May 28, 2009

Sorry for the typo in my previous post. The last sentence of the second paragraph should read:

"On another sense, an individual is responsible if the individual is morally liable for the offense."

sworm

#19 – 5:57 PM May 28, 2009

And as was to be expected, we get the usual rationalisations from selfish people who want to keep buying crap for as cheap as possible and refuse to take any responsibility as consumers

Ich habe es nicht gewusst, ich habe es nicht gewusst.

Crap.

Read the UN reports. The congo war was prolonged by our first for coltan. Fact.

But then again, who gives a shit about black people in africa. If I don't see it on the news, it isn't happening.

sworm

#20 – 5:58 PM May 28, 2009

*thirst. sry

jonobo

#21 – 6:07 PM May 28, 2009

1. One way to stop the Coltan-Chaos in Congo is "simple": Coltan-Embargo for Congo.
(Or even a Coltan-Embargo for all African Countries, so it can't be smuggled around easily... ...still could be flown to Russia or somewhere else, but would really make it way less profitable)

2. Africa is THE G-Continent. G for Gangsta. No Joking. No Fun. Not Funny. Even less funny: no "1st-World"-Government wants to change that.
Why?
Because the easiest way to get ressources from a country is to simply bribe a corrupt elite (gangsta-clikk/crew) with money and weapons, so the "Gs" can oppress and enslave the rest of the population and sell all the countries ressources for cheap.
This System is really simple and works perfect and deadly. Give some people power over other people and promise them to leave them alone in their "Gangster's Paradise" as long as they deliver what you want from them: gold, diamonds, coltan, you-name-it.

misterfricative

#22 – 6:19 PM May 28, 2009

I really don't understand all the hostility of most of the comments here. Eve is right, and her proposed validation/labeling solution follows where ethical diamonds or Fairtrade coffee have gone before. This for sure won't solve all the world's problems overnight, but it's a step in the right direction.

Heck, this is one of the few times when a bit of consciousness raising might actually do some good.

And as for 'Rape-Free' not being a comfortable thing to put on packaging, well actually being raped probably isn't very fricking 'comfortable' either.

spazzm

#23 – 6:26 PM May 28, 2009

These people aren't being raped to produce Tantalum. They're being raped to produce labor.

And the labour is used to produce Tantalum. So, indirectly, those people are being raped to produce Tantalum.

Reading this thread reminds me of the rationalisations Nicolas Cage's character in 'Lord of War' comes up with as he's selling weapons to people who are clearly about to use them to massacre civilians: Utterly transparent and self-serving.

spazzm

#24 – 6:29 PM May 28, 2009

And as for 'Rape-Free' not being a comfortable thing to put on packaging, [...]

I dunno, if I was choosing between two otherwise identical products, I certainly wouldn't by the one without the 'rape-free' sticker. Come on, who wants a wireless router that will rape you?

Shaddack

#25 – 7:39 PM May 28, 2009

Mandatory disclosure of types and brands of components used in devices would be generally a good idea. The most painful issue is not tantalum, but the aluminium electrolytic capacitors.

We then could avoid buying devices using the CrapXon capacitors and other inferior brands prone to early failures and prolonging the electronics' time-to-landfill.

Ladyfingers

#26 – 7:49 PM May 28, 2009

I take umbrage with Ensler for saying that "we create these atrocities".

No, we don't. African rapists do.

Anonymous Anonymous

#27 – 8:03 PM May 28, 2009

You know what else I wish was "Rape-free"? Rape

EscapingTheTrunk

#28 – 8:22 PM May 28, 2009

#22 has it. Since FairTrade logos have been applied to various products, those products have become more popular, because they're targeted at a specific market demographic. Electronics that use capacitors made from humanely sourced tantalum could become the same. It's a niche, but an informative niche: the very presence of FairTrade products alert the public that the vast majority of products are not fairly traded.

This is part of living in a globalized economy. We can't benefit from it on one side and claim that there's nothing to be done on the other. We may not have Congolese citizenship, but we have our money. And money is just as important there, if not more so, than a vote.

Anonymous Anonymous

#29 – 9:24 PM May 28, 2009

@ S.R.Hadden,

The question of moral responsibility DOES change depending on how far removed a person is from an immoral act. Let's consider the case of a murder. A man murders a woman in cold blood outside of a restaurant. The man is directly responsible for the murder, hence he is the most morally reprehensible. Curious on-lookers who did nothing to help the woman are arguably responsible for the act (via Good Samaritan Laws), but in no way would anyone consider the on-lookers anywhere near as morally reprehensible as the murderer. The man who sold the murder the gun is even less responsible for the murder and the person who produced bullets for the gun is not at all responsible for said murder.

What Ensler and many other Marxists argue is moral culpability if any sort of moral transgression occurs during any part of the production process. This is patently absurd and, as my previous example illustrates, it'd be like accusing bullet-makers of murder. Indeed, the rape camps in the Congo are an atrocity that deserves international attention, but it is a problem that cannot be dealt with simple changes in consumption. The more robust (and practical) solution would be to embargo the Congo and deal with the situation politically.

S.R.Hadden

#30 – 10:58 PM May 28, 2009

LADYFINGERS,

Clearly, we didn't *commit* the atrocities, but we do provide the rapists with an incentive to commit the atrocities, by purchasing products that contain resources mined by the victims -- we do so without regard for the labor practices of those selling the resources. Thus they have a motivation to commit the atrocities, a motivation provided by us. It is in this sense that we "create" (not "commit") the atrocities.

glittertrash

#31 – 11:33 PM May 28, 2009

I totally agree that the existence of FairTrade/Cruelty-Free options raises awareness of the fact that the vast majority of consumer goods are NOT FairTrade or Cruelty-Free. And thinking about that can only be a good thing. I don't see why, when so many other consumer industries have opened up 'ethical-consuming' niches, gadgets can't too.

Surely I do believe that consuming LESS is the preferable option, but sometimes you gotta buy shit, and it's nice to be presented with the option to buy shit that doesn't involve the exploitation of slave labour/the existence of rape camps/the rampant abuse of human rights.

Kieran O'Neill

#32 – 12:21 AM May 29, 2009

The same situation exists for chocolate and child slave labour in the Ivory Coast.

It it doesn't say fair trade, children were probably forced to work under horrifying conditions to produce your chocolate.

And I'm sure the same goes for many things (e.g. conditions of factory workers in China).

Personally, I'm all in favour of the inverse of the fair trade mark - if a product doesn't qualify, force them to print on the packaging the horrors that went into its production.

"Cocoa produced by child slave labour."

"Miners of raw materials regularly raped to increase productivity."

... etc.

Ladyfingers

#33 – 3:47 AM May 29, 2009

S.R.HADDEN,

I don't agree.

At what point do we stop saying the West is responsible for the problems in Africa? At what point do we start saying that African culture is at fault for being misogynist, violent and corrupt?

I argue that the moral culpability argument here says that we essentially believe that Africans are like animalistic automatons that can have their poor behaviours sneakily modified with punishment/reward training.

Africa is a black hole for foreign aid that never reaches the poor, and sanction policies that benefit plutocracies. If embargoes are placed on the Congo, do you really think they'll suddenly lose the incentive to be evil? The place will get worse. Much, much worse. Sanctions against Iraq, for instance, are believed to have been responsible for over 600,000 deaths in that country. Imagine what will happen when the plug is pulled on Congo.

Kieran O'Neill

#34 – 8:55 AM May 29, 2009

@Ladyfingers: Spoken like a caricature of a racist middle class white South African.

I know you're better than that.

redsquid

#35 – 10:04 AM May 29, 2009

Certainly a 'wonderful thing'.

JIMP

#36 – 10:15 AM May 29, 2009

I hate to break it to you, but a rape-free label doesn't suddenly mean people will stop getting raped. It's hard enough to guarantee ROHS compliance.

I'm responsible for the purchase of millions of dollars of tantalum caps. I haven't seen all of my suppliers policies but I don't believe they have raping in any of their quality guides.

That said, I'm all for making the world a better place but let's at least try to be practical and not pin everything on the evil corporations.

Anonymous Anonymous

#37 – 10:15 AM May 29, 2009

What is funny is a sick sort of way is that Africans don't give a shit about other Africans, so why in the hell does anyone else? Thugs like Zuma and Mugabe are adored by their followers. They view the the rest of the world as suckers for donating aid since most of it goes to corrupt pols and what little goes to the people only insures that there are more people in the next generation to beg for aid or illegally immigrate to countries that are a step above their current cesspool. Face it. If the UN seriously wanted to intervene in the various African crisis of the day, they'd have to take over the entire continent. If you want to fix it, ban all trade, travel, and currency exchange with the continent. In 20 years or less, it would be a nice site to for a reintroduced wildlife park with pockets of sustainable civilization. Harsh? Yes, but IMHO, it would be less cruel than what we're doing now which only insures that unknown millions more will live in misery for decades to come.

cognitive dissonance

#38 – 1:36 PM May 29, 2009

While I think everyone is in agreement that this is a more than noble cause, does anyone else remember that there is, in fact an underage lesbian RAPE scene in her "vagina monologues?"

I believe the passage "If it was a rape, it was a good rape" was later taken out.

But more to the point, and not to distract from the horrors of the rapings, but am I alone in thinking that it's somewhat absurd to conclude that rape as a war tactic is DRIVEN by consumerism? I mean, rape and pillage is a figure of speech after all, no matter how insensitive it may be,and it has been around long before columbite-tantalite ore was ever a prized commodity.

I think it's somewhat irresponsible to raise awareness by finger pointing, rather than genuinely trying to help these women. I mean, not buying from these regimes dosn't solve the actual problem of conquest-raping in the least. I suppose it's something more than nothing.

-CD

Anonymous Anonymous

#39 – 4:17 PM May 29, 2009

Ivan@16 - the value of labor cannot be diminished, no. But the value of slave labor can be diminished pretty obviously, if products disclose whether or not they were produced by slaves and consumers choose to purchase only slavery-free products.

S.R.Hadden

#40 – 10:14 PM May 29, 2009

cognitive dissonance,

It is important to distinguish rape in general, from the particular rapes used to enforce laborers to mine coltan.

No one claims (or at least no one should claim) that rape in general, or as a war tactic, is caused by consumerism. Rather, the claim is that particular rapes, in a particular context, were driven by consumerism with respect to a particular product. Since we provide those rapists with an incentive to commit the rapes, and since we benefited from those rapes, we share responsibility for THOSE rapes -- not for rape in general.

Anonymous Anonymous

#41 – 11:23 PM May 29, 2009

You mean that laborers in developing countries don't get health plans and worker's comp???

Folks, this is what humans do. We can get all high an mighty about how awful all this is, but you go back in any civilization's history and you will find this kind of thing all over the place. The US, for example, was built on slave labor, and yes, a lot of those women were raped.

We don't do this kind of thing in our countries anymore not because we have seen the light or are better/smarter/more-enlightened people, but that we can afford not to.

Does this deserve international exposure and shaming? Yes. Is it surprising? No. Is it any of our business? No. All "we" could really do is put an embargo on Congo, but you can bet that won't do anything to the number of people being raped and forced into servitude. That happens all over sub-Saharan Africa.

It is so incredibly arrogant to think we are so important that we are responsible for every evil to which we have even the slightest relationship, and even more to think we have a responsibility to stop it.

FutureNerd

#42 – 11:25 AM May 30, 2009

I believe things we do make a difference, sometimes a big difference in the world. I want to do my best to make the world a better, less evil place.

There are probably six degrees of separation between me and any evil-- but also any good-- on the planet. This one link is not particularly notable, and buying things we like generally doesn't promote more evil than it stops, or cause more harm than good, elsewhere.

Trying to monitor, label and boycott flows of tantalum in war zones would probably do more harm than good.

Meanwhile all of the other evil-- and good-- is still going on, I am still connected to it all, and the question remains how to best spend my time.

S.R.Hadden

#43 – 8:45 PM May 30, 2009

Ladyfingers,

My claim is not that we are providing an incentive for them to be evil in general. My claim is that we are providing them with an incentive to level atrocities against forced laborers to mine coltan. Even if those in power would still have an incentive to commit *the same* atrocities if we did not purchase their resources, the fact that we actually provide them with an incentive inculpates us, or at least makes us morally liable.

This causal vs. counterfactual distinction is fundamental to ethics and law in general, and you seem to be confusing the two. Imagine that someone will give you 100 bucks for pushing a button that will kill a child. And suppose there are hundreds of people behind you, each of whom would take the offer and push the button if you refuse. But if you push the button, kill the child, and take the money, you are STILL responsible for the child's death, EVEN IF the child would have died at someone else's hands anyway. Similarly, it's no defense for a hitman to say "the mob boss would just have hired someone else if I didn't do it".

Likewise, even if the rapists would have some OTHER incentive to commit the rapes if we didn't provide one, that we actually provide an incentive, and that we benefit from providing it, renders us responsible for the atrocities.

S.R.Hadden

#44 – 9:02 PM May 30, 2009

#29,

You should register, so that you have a screenname, and so that your comments show up immediately! :-)

Anyway, you are confusing moral culpability with moral liability. It is very important that we distinguish the relevant concepts here. When it comes to moral liability, the causal relations between the liable party and the harm in question is far less important An individual can be morally LIABLE for a harm EVEN IF 1) the individual played NO ROLE in causing the harm, and 2) the individual could not have prevented that harm.

cognitive dissonance

#45 – 7:36 AM June 2, 2009

HADDEN.

Again, I'm not sure precisely where any real help is coming to these women through this "rape free gadget" embellishment, and am not convinced that we provide them with an 'incentive' to commit them in the first place.

Primarily, it is proposing a war of attrition against perhaps the most inhuman and degrading of war tactics; essentially proposing a "dolphin free" tuna, only public indifference dosen't result in some mammals in your tin, it results in every day, thousands getting raped. This is acting as if the warlord/regeime won't just exploit another raw materiel, or turn to more savage of tactics when(if) the money does dry up, if this scheme works and they are more desperate to assert their power.

Secondly, by the world requiring an obscure mineral of which they posess 1% (from what i've seen in the comments) of the global load of, I'm not convinced is providing any serious incentive for these rapes. It's rape to assert dominance and to force labor, and to be honest we should be so lucky that this is a mineral that is also going to medical devices, rather than rape labor for blood diamonds or endangered species. Forgive the insensitive tone, as the rapes are a tragedy, but I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from.

S.R.Hadden

#46 – 7:01 PM June 2, 2009

Cognitive Dissonance,

Good points! But I addressed precisely these is #43.

Tzctlp

#47 – 8:15 AM June 16, 2009

This is asinine.

By the measure of that woman's logic, we could as well stop buying anything, curl up and die (go on, check the procedence of most of ths stuff you buy nowadays, I am sure you can find something objectionable about the place where it is produced, even stuff from the US and other developed countries is boycotted in other parts of the world for a myriad of variety of reasons).

In countries where people have some higher moral standards (many of them in Africa, before somebody throws the racist card around) when you have a resource that is valuable, you don't resort to raping women in order to obtain the labour necessary to extract it.

The unavoidable responsibility for the rapes of women is squarely in the shoulders of the rapists and of the African politicians, leaders and strong men that allow such thing to happen.

Ban anything produced in DR Congo (because if minerals are banned, then the thugs would just force women to produce something else) and in top of being raped, women would live in a country with no economic future.

The illogical militant feminism that tries to make everybody guilty by association is morally corrupt, since it does not address the actual issues while creating all kind of illogical smokescreens.