A horrifying yet necessary picture of exploitation and poverty in the Congo.
A penetrating exposé on the deliberate smoke screens created by powerful companies to obscure the realities behind the abysmal conditions of cobalt miners in the Congo.
Cobalt is highly valuable as an essential component of the rechargeable batteries that power laptops, tablets, smartphones, and electric vehicles. As such, the demand for cobalt has risen exponentially in the last decade. In 2021, 72% of the global supply was mined in the Congo, along what is called the Central African Copper Belt. In this eye-opening and disturbing investigative report, Kara, the author of multiple books on modern global slavery, paints a stark portrait of the appalling conditions in the mining villages, expertly capturing the “frenzy” of digging by so-called artisanal miners, who toil in unspeakable conditions for a pittance. These workers are the first link in the exploitative chain of resource extraction that keeps millions of Africans in poverty and ill health and degrades the environment, all while enriching massive corporations and foreign investors. Nationalized by former dictator Joseph Mobutu, then sold to the Chinese in 2012 by subsequent dictator Joseph Kabila, the mines were supposed to support infrastructure, education, and health care, yet little of that money has benefited the Congolese people. Peasants are so desperate for work that digging compels the whole family to participate, even the children; there are few schools, and those that exist are too expensive for low-wage workers. Corporations such as Apple, Tesla, Samsung, and Daimler claim to follow regulations, but Kara demonstrates their duplicity and empty public relations rhetoric. In more than two decades of “research into slavery and child labor, I have never seen more extreme predation for profit than I witnessed at the bottom of the global cobalt supply chains.” The author’s well-written, forcefully argued report exposes the widespread, debilitating human ramifications of our device-driven global society.
A horrifying yet necessary picture of exploitation and poverty in the Congo.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-28430-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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