Raw Materials, Part II

So, here's the thing: my eyes continue to be opened here by how we consume things in North America and Europe with absolutely NO REGARD for the source or origin of those items. I wrote about this before, and I will repeat it again: if we really thought about what it took for our gold, our food, our coffee and our gas to get to our fingers, mouths and cars (respectively), we might reconsider our choices.

I make this statement from the perspective of Colombia, specifically the Department of Quindío, in the heart of this country's coffee-growing region. You know: "Made from the best stuff on earth"? Yeah, that. Well, guess what else comes from Colombia? Cocaine. And I was infuriated by an article I read in this past Sunday's New York Times, which practically glorified the use of cocaine, talking about how it was totally the cool new drug. The article was in the Styles section, even.

Now, I will acknowledge the fact that some people are addicts and have practically no control over their drug use. Addiction is a disease, etc., and that's a different thing. But most of the people quoted in that article seem to be occasional users. And they don't even seem like terrible people. So, I think that they might reconsider using cocaine a bit if they knew about the chain of violence, corruption, pain and death that it takes for that cocaine to get from Colombian fields to their prissy hipster Williamsburg noses. With every line, they are treating Latin America like their own personal backyard cocaine crop.

Why do you think there is so much cocaine in Colombia? It's not because the Colombians are bad people or whatever; it's because there is a huge demand for it, in our country. A demand that is growing fast, if you believe the Times. And the path it takes to the US is ridden with absolute terror.

Latin America has been referred to a number of times as the "back yard" of the United States, often in a very paternalistic manner. But I was thinking the other day that the term "backy ard" has another meaning, too. You know how in everyone's back yard there is always one area that's a little unsightly, a part where the tools and the clutter all pile up? Things that you need, but you don't know where to put? Or maybe the ugly piping for your pool or your air conditioner that you can't hide anywhere else?

Well, Latin America is a little like that for the US, unfortunately. Latin America is the place where we pile up our necessities, our clutter, our piping, the parts we can't put in any other place. That sucks as it is. And really, we are perpetuating that when we use products that are produced in an unjust fashion. Like cocaine. Sweatshop clothes would be the logical extension of this argument, but I'm not going to get into that onr. Gold is another one: many gold mines are manned by workers who are fully exploited. And, of course, coffee.

Don't get me wrong: gold items, coffee products and clothes are obviously not all bad, and many are made, refined and manufactured in a just way. And as for cocaine, who am I to condemn the vices of others? But I will say that we should think carefully and get informed about the origins of the products we consume, because we might think twice about our choices that way.

It's very easy to gloss over this when you're at Target (or wherever) and something is gleaming before you, begging to be bought. But remember that what you're buying didn't come from the Target factory: its origins likely lay in the raw materials that are extracted from Latin America and other poorer regions in the southern hemisphere, at a very low cost by a multinational company, which then sells it to you at a huge mark-up. So tell that to the devil on your shoulder telling you to buy more crap that you don't really need.