Blood Diamond

I caught this film last week with my two brother-in-laws. Without doing too much research I thought it would be your typical action/suspense movie where obviously there is some feud over a diamond. Even the imdb site doesn't give a great description, "A farmer, a smuggler, and a syndicate of businessmen match wits over the possession of a priceless diamond." So I was a little surprised to find that it was a bit of a political and social message aimed at revealing the kind of struggles that Africa has faced for a long time. I say "kinds of struggles" because the film notes that diamonds is only one of the many conflict items Africa has run across in it's history. There has also been conflict over rubber, offshore oil, land, and more recently - religion. This film is filled with an incredibly raw look at forced slavery, the process of children being turned into soldiers (or more accurately - mercenaries), torture, the harsh reality of refugee life, the impotence of NGO's, and the strong sense of need for something to be done about it all.
I left the theater with a response that I feel is typical... I was overwhelmed. What could I really do to make a difference in these conflicts? There was a line in the movie where Maddy Bowen (played by Jennifer Connelly) says something about how rediculous it is to do something for just one family. Then she catches herself falling into the same trap she is busy trying to fight against throgh her journalism. The way we ease our conscience is to tell ourselves there is noting we can really do to help. I'm tired of that response.
So, I've moved to step two and that is education. I want to find out what is going on. In case your thinking, "this was just a movie". Here are some facts from globalissues.org:
There have been over 9.5 million refugees and hundreds and thousands of people have been slaughtered. If this scale of destruction and fighting was in Europe, then people would be calling it World War III with the entire world rushing to report, provide aid, mediate and otherwise try to diffuse the situation.
Angola has seen an estimated 500,000 people killed since 1989 and an estimated 3 million refugees. It is also being torn apart due to resources such as diamonds and offshore oil, with various factions fighting for these prizes, supported by multinational corporations and other governments.
I'm tired of learning about all of the things I should have been involved in by going to the movies.