Cobalto rojo. El Congo se desangra para que tú te conectes

by Siddharth Kara

En un trabajo de investigación desgarrador, el escritor y activista Siddharth Kara revela los abusos contra los derechos humanos que se esconden tras la minería del cobalto en la República Democrática del Congo, y las implicaciones morales que nos afectan a todos. Aproximadamente el 75 por ciento del suministro mundial de cobalto se extrae en el Congo, a menudo por campesinos y niños en condiciones infrahumanas. Kara se adentró en el territorio del cobalto para documentar los testimonios de las personas que viven, trabajan y mueren por él. Para desvelar la verdad sobre las brutales prácticas de extracción, investigó las zonas mineras controladas por las milicias, rastreó la cadena de suministro del cobalto, desde el pozo tóxico hasta los gigantes tecnológicos que tratan con el consumidor, y recogió estremecedores relatos de personas que soportan un inmenso sufrimiento e incluso mueren extrayendo el preciado metal. El cobalto es un componente esencial en todas las baterías recargables de iones de litio que se fabrican hoy en día: las que alimentan nuestros teléfonos inteligentes, tabletas, ordenadores portátiles y vehículos eléctricos. Así, miles de millones de personas en el mundo no pueden desarrollar su vida cotidiana sin participar en una catástrofe medioambiental y de derechos humanos.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Africa, Politics, Audiobook, Economics, Environment

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2023

About the author

Siddharth Kara is an author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery. Kara has written several books and reports on slavery and child labor, including the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Cobalt Red. Kara also won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. He has lectured at Harvard University and held a professorship at the University of Nottingham. He divides his time between Los Angeles and London.

Reviews

[zuza_zaksiazkowane · Rating 5 out of 5]

To nie jest łatwa lektura, ale każdy powinien to przeczytać moim zdaniem

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please tell the people in your country, a child of the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones.
Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara

I am writing this review on my laptop with a rechargeable battery, looking at my tablet with a rechargeable battery. I brushed my teeth this morning with an electric toothbrush with, yes, a rechargeable battery. I wear a smart watch, with a rechargeable battery. And when we trade in our leased car, I expect its replacement choices will all be EV cars.

Like you, my daily life has become reliant on this power source. This life style is made possible because of batteries that use cobalt and are manufactured in China. How many of us know where that cobalt comes from? I know I didn’t. How many of us care care about how it is mined? Or do we merely enjoy the luxury of cutting-edge technology?

Cobalt Red will disturb your content consumerism. You will meet the artisanal, small scale miners who dig up the ore and sell it to a middleman for little money. They are men, women, and children who live in stone-age conditions, without local medical care or schools, without protection from the hazardous work. Siddharth Kara traveled to these mine site and interviewed the workers. They told her that their lives had no value, their deaths counted for nothing.

The history of the Congo is one of exploitation since Europeans found a way into the interior of Africa. It’s political leaders exploited the country’s wealth. It has little infrastructure. The mining companies forced populations off their lands. They had little recourse but to work in small scale mining.

The book held my interest like a good horror story; it was too awful to look away. The author met with the Congolese ambassador. He was told that the Congolese people needed to speak for themselves, it wasn’t the place of a foreigner to make a case for them. But, sadly, their voices have not been heard at conferences or the tech companies that purchase the Congolese cobalt.

I want now to understand how consumers can make an impact. It is too morally easy to accept that the politically and financially powerless Congolese will be able to pressure for better wages and safe work conditions.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

[Sam Klemens · Rating 5 out of 5]

At no point in their history have the Congolese people benefited in any meaningful way from the monetization of their country’s resources. Rather, they have often served as a slave labor force for the extraction of these resources at minimum cost and maximum suffering.

Cobalt Red, written by Siddharth Kara, describes “artisanal” cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo*, a lifestyle that roughly approximates hell on earth. Men, women and children who are zero to one step above slavery dig, sort, crush, tunnel and most of all die in the pursuit of the cobalt that enables our comfortable, battery-powered lives. Here’s what you need to know about the artisanal miners of the Congo.

*Henceforth referred to simply as “the Congo” in this review.

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I originally published this review on my Substack The Unhedged Capitalist - check out that article to read this review with images and better formatting...

https://theunhedgedcapitalist.substac...

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Every morning hundreds of thousands if not millions of Congolese wake up, don their plastic flip flops or go barefoot to the mine. The mines vary from Olympic pool size all the way up to hundreds of feet in diameter and several hundred feet deep. The safest work is on the surface but that’s not always where the cobalt is.

Men and boys frequently dig tunnels to find high concentration deposits. These tunnels may go as deep as one-hundred and eighty feet, but the shafts are only three feet wide. The miners descend into the tunnel on their hands and knees while the only way back up is by climbing a rope. The miners don’t have access to protective equipment and only some of the tunnels have an air and/or water pump.

Cave-ins are mind numbingly common and when they happen dozens of people can die. Crushed immediately or buried alive, it makes little difference since rescue is impossible. The artisanal miners work with rebar and other hand tools, they could never dig a hundred feet in time to save their trapped relatives. On the rare occasion when a survivor is found the injuries may be so severe that they’re crippled for life.

Tens of thousands of children or more across the Congo work at the mines, often crushing the cobalt into smaller pieces then washing away impurities in toxic water that burns the skin and does God knows what damage to the internals. These children should be in school but their families cannot afford the $5 monthly fee. Children often come to the mine after one of their parents or an older sibling is killed, as their is little work in a country with such a pathetic education system.

After reading Cobalt Red and discovering how the artisanal miners live I believe it’s fair to say that theirs is one of the worst existences I’ve ever heard of. Life for the artisanal miners is not meaningfully different from a hundred years ago when the Congolese had their hands chopped off for not meeting quotas in the rubber industry.

There is grief, and then there is soul-wrenching misery. There is loss, and then there is life-destroying calamity. One encounters the limits of what human hearts can endure all too often in the Congo.

Who is to blame?

We must tread carefully as we attempt to figure out who is to blame. Although there are significant culprits, there is no single factor that can easily explain the situation. In 1890 Joseph Conrad toured the Congo on a riverboat and the journey can be neatly encapsulated in the four words he famously wrote, The horror! The horror! For more than a hundred years western countries pillaged the Congo for its resources and forced the local populace into a greater or lesser form of slavery/debt bondage.

Remember a few years ago when Saudi Arabia lured Jamal Khashoggi into an embassy in Turkey where thugs killed him, resized the remains and atomized the evidence in a vat of acid? And the whole western world was up in arms about how barbaric the Saudis are? Justifiably so! But what do you think about the Belgians? Good beer and chocolate perhaps, but surprises lurk below.

In 1960 the Congolese voted in Patrice Lumumba, their first democratically elected president. Lumumba promised to kick out the westerners and share the Congo’s wealth with its citizens. The western world panicked, especially the Belgians as they were large shareholders in the exploitation industry.

Belgian mercenaries kidnapped Lumumba, tortured him, took him out of the game with a bullet then hacked hacked hacked and tossed the pieces in a vat of acid. If we’re to believe the reports, one guy took a tooth as a souvenir. Lumumba was the Congo’s one viable hope of getting the country on track but those dreams were quickly subdued by European killers*.

*For more details about this type of imperial tyranny and the overthrow of democratically elected officials, see my review of Confessions of an Economic Hitman.Confessions of an Economic Hitman

It was a bold, anti-colonial vision that could have altered the course of history in the Congo and across Africa. In short order, Belgium, the United Nations, the United States, and the neocolonial interests they represented rejected Lumumba’s vision, conspired to assassinate him, and propped up a violent dictator, Joseph Mobutu, in his place.

With their one hope of sovereignty lost the Congolese have been at the whim of foreign exploitation for as long as anyone can remember. A history of foreign intervention is to blame, a stunningly ineffective and corrupt government plays its role, as does skyrocketing demand for cobalt coming primarily from the electric car industry. While cobalt has always been used in consumer devices like iPhones and laptops, electric cars are the primary driver of demand for this highly sought after metal.

The battery packs in electric vehicles require up to ten kilograms of refined cobalt each, more than one thousand times the amount required for a smartphone battery. As a result, demand for cobalt is expected to grow by almost 500 percent from 2018 to 2050.

We can say with a high degree of certainty that nearly every battery pack in an EV contains some amount of cobalt mined by hand in the Congo, likely by children since they represent an increasing part of the workforce since Covid. Do the EV companies know that ten year olds are getting crushed to death or catching cancer from the toxic sometimes even radioactive soil they dig? Yes, they know...

Consumer-facing tech and EV companies, mining companies, and other stakeholders in the cobalt chain invariably point their fingers downstream, even at their own subsidiaries, as if doing so somehow severs their responsibility for what is happening in the cobalt mines of the Congo.

Cobalt is such a crucial ingredient that there is no way the executives don’t understand what’s happening in the Congo. When confronted the companies hide behind bland statements about “commitments” and whatever other corporate rubbish the lawyers draft up. Despite the denials, there are people at every large tech/EV company who know the hellish Congo but are incentivized to let it happen since artisanal miners are cheap labor and produce the highest concentration of mined cobalt.

Artisanal mining techniques can yield up to ten or fifteen times a higher grade of cobalt per ton than industrial mining can. This is the primary reason that many industrial copper-cobalt mines in the DRC informally allow artisanal mining to take place on their concessions.

I should point out, however, that although western corporations are benefiting from this inconceivable atrocity, there are no major western mining companies left in the country and the direct assault is being led by the Chinese.

The small depots that buy cobalt directly from the artisanal miners are mostly run by Chinese workers. The large Chinese mining companies knowingly buy the child-mined cobalt from the depots, and the firms allow and even encourage artisanal miners of all ages to work on company land. According to Cobalt Red, the Congolese feel that however bad the westerners were, the China are an even worse plague on the country.

Is there a solution?

So called “commitments,” “reform programs” and “model mining sites” are meaningless corporate speak which large companies hide behind so they don’t have to make any changes. The Congo is a long ways away, most people can’t find it on a map and the entire approach to this issue is out of sight, out of mind.

The harsh realities of cobalt mining in the Congo are an inconvenience to every stakeholder in the chain. No company wants to concede that the rechargeable batteries used to power smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles contain cobalt mined by peasants and children in hazardous conditions. - The titanic companies that sell products containing Congolese cobalt are worth trillions, yet the people who dig their cobalt out of the ground eke out a base existence.

That’s why I am proposing an out of the box solution that could easily be funded by a single billionaire philanthropist. To affect change we must ditch the ineffective reform programs and focus on the foundational problem: the artisanal miners are unable to share their existence with the world. Earning a dollar or two a day and living in homes without electricity, the people enabling the smartphone revolution cannot afford the fruits of their labor. Let’s change that.

I believe the fastest way to force change would be to distribute millions of smartphones to artisanal miners, their friends and family too. Give everyone a portable charging unit, a smartphone and lessons in using social media. Congolese children continue to be maimed in mining accidents because the tunnel collapses never makes the evening news. Despite its colossal list of faults, social media remains a public forum where people can draw attention to injustice and force faceless corporations to contend with their actions.

While the current status of the Congo is hell on earth, there is a hopeful message in that this is not an unsolvable problem. Solutions exist and could be quickly implemented if the right people demanded action.

Conclusions

Don’t read Cobalt Red if you have an EV and like feeling good about your purchase, this is not the book for you. For the rest of you, well, if you’ve been feeling too happy lately and want to vacation with the worst aspects of humanity, Cobalt Red is just what you’re looking for.

The book is well-written, concise and bursting with stories of loss, bravery and intense grief. Hell, maybe you don’t care about that and you only want to know how the largest cobalt mines in the world operate. Well, Cobalt Red will explain that too. Come for the horror, stay for the geology. The road to Kolwezi, the epicenter of Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, doesn’t discriminate.

As we will discover with each passing mile on the road to Kolwezi, the rechargeable battery revolution has unleashed a malevolent force upon the Congo that tramples all in its path in a merciless hunt for cobalt.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful book about the humans rights abuses and child labor taking place in Congo. Cobalt is a key component of every lithium-ion rechargeable battery, and many Congolese people are suffering and dying everyday to procure cobalt that will be used by the rest of the world. It was a painful and necessary read and an issue we shouldn’t look away from.

[Rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone who uses a laptop, smartphone, tablet or drives an EV should read this book.

It's packed full of almost too much information about cobalt, the history of the Congo, government corruption, child labor, and human trafficking.

This not a guilt driven book, it calmly states facts. Nothing is blown out of proportion, you can look up the statistics yourself. The book clearly shows what business like Apple, Google, Samsung, Dell, and GM (just to name a few) do to cover up their involvement to child labor and predatory business practices. Everything is carefully “washed” like a crime lord filtering dirty money so they can say they are not part of the problem.

A smart phone uses a few grams of cobalt
A tablet needs 30 grams of cobalt
A battery pack for an electronic vehicle needs 10 kilograms of cobalt

When the Biden administration announced that the entire federal fleet of vehicles would soon be replaced by EV, I wondered why Native American leaders were furious. They were the first I’d heard to speak their concerns, which made me want to seek out more information on the subject.

Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. Roughly 75 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions.

Highly recommended, but painful to read. I don’t think this is a problem everyday people can solve, but I do think it’s important to be aware of what is happening around us.

[Alex.andthebooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wstydzę się bycia człowiekiem

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This was the final truth of cobalt mining in the Congo: the life of a child buried alive while digging for cobalt counted for nothing. All the dead here counted for nothing. The loot is all."

Our power was out for about 35 hours over the weekend due to a storm that moved through, downing lines and breaking a pole, leaving a transistor box precariously dangling upside down.

As awful as it was without electricity, thanks to rechargeable batteries, we still had many devices we could use.

A quick head count of the rechargeable devices in my household gives me the number 29. No doubt there are more - at first I counted 14, then items just kept popping into my head while writing this review. Each of these devices have, at the very least, one element that inflicts extreme suffering and even death on the Congolese people.

That element is cobalt.

Cobalt is a rare metal that is essential to almost every lithium-ion rechargeable battery currently made. Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe and often contains radioactive uranium. Much of this cobalt is mined by the Congolese people, including children and pregnant women, without any protective gear and earning them a mere dollar or two a day (wages rarely exceed $2/day).

Though all the big companies (Samsung, Apple, Tesla, etc) proudly claim there is no child labor in the cobalt they use, nothing is done to ensure it. As the author claims, during 21 years of research into slavery and child labor, he has never seen or heard of any activities by either of the two coalitions that supposedly ensure there is no slavery or child labor used in the supply chain. It appears these coalitions exist merely so that the companies can claim to be against slavery and child labor without actually being against either of those things.

This book is incredibly well-researched and well-written. It was difficult to read, learning how the Congolese people are suffering. It is horrific in the extreme, and all so that we Westerners and many Asians can have cheap battery-powered devices.

Mr. Kara delves into the more recent history of the Congo, beginning with the advent of colonialism, through the corrupt dictatorship of Mobutu (whom the US and UK placed and kept in power) and shows how these led to the current situation of exploitation and suffering of the Congolese people, three-fourths of whom live below the poverty line.

Trillions of dollars are being made by huge corporations, while the Congolese people slave away, suffer, get paralyzed and sick, and sometimes buried alive. As one man told the author, "We work in our graves".

My power was back on in 35 hours, those 35 hours without being made more comfortable by all my battery-powered devices. Meanwhile, the people whose blood is spilled to give me those devices live without electricity in their homes, and rarely have the $2 to spend to buy even a couple cheap, non-rechargeable batteries to power a flashlight.

This is an incredibly important book, especially because we are all ultimately responsible for this travesty. We need to hold the corporations who give us our devices responsible, even if that means we end up paying a little more for the products we buy.

[Callum's Column · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There are many episodes in the history of the Congo that are bloodier than what is happening in the mining sector today, but none of these episodes ever involved so much suffering for so much profit linked so indispensably to the lives of billions of people around the world." Roughly three quarters of the world's cobalt—a critical resource for lithium-ion batteries—is mined in the Congo by quasi-slaves who live wretched lives and die young. China's imperialist theft is overt, while Western imperialism disguises itself through shadow business dealings that obscure the mineral's true source. The subtitle is to the point: the blood of the Congo powers our lives.

Siddharth Kara visited the Congo several times to write this journalistic exposé. He interviewed anyone who was willing to talk, including grieving family members of those killed in the mines, those maimed by the mines, those sexually assaulted in the mines, those pillaging the mines, and those profiting from the mines. Kara also provides a brief history of the Congo and how colonialism and neo-colonialism underpins contemporary despair. However, his most fierce critique is for the Congolese government—kleptocrats who have consistently betrayed their people for personal enrichment. I listened to the audiobook, which highlighted the well-written prose of the author.

The frustrating thing about this book is that there is an abundance of cobalt elsewhere—i.e., Australia. We have vast deposits of critical minerals that are only now starting to be mined. However, it is not to minimise the harm suffered by the people in the Congo or similar nations, but for strategic reasons. Western countries are willing to bear the extra costs of these minerals to prevent China from monopolising their production, as these resources are crucial for the operation of modern weaponry. Such instances demonstrate that realpolitik, rather than liberal ideals, significantly influences the global economy—often to the detriment of the most vulnerable.

[Karen Faller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could have been an article in the Atlantic. Every chapter was a duplicate of the last, the repetition was frustrating. And that the author didn’t provide any ‘solutions’ until the epilogue, which ended up being about 2 sentences and then turned into more of the same repetition was just ridiculous. Although the topic was riveting, I wouldn’t read another book by this author.

[Kist · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 out of 5 concept, 3 out of 5 execution. Despite some flaws it's ultimately an important, eye-opening book and we need more like it.

[Tala🦈 (mrs.skywalker.reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

ludzie opierający swoją krytykę tej książki na powtarzalności kolejnych historii… 🙄 that’s the fucking point that’s the fucking world we live in that allows this shit to happen over and over and over and over and over again ale cóż skoro ktoś wymięka po 200 stronach „repetetywnego” cierpienia Kongijczyków no to Kara ma wiele racji w swojej ocenie przeciętnego użytkownika smartphona (nie żebym wcześniej w to wątpiła)

[theliterateleprechaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I thought that the ground in the Congo took its vermillion hue from the copper in the dirt, but now I cannot help but wonder whether the earth here is red because of all the blood that has spilled upon it.”

This is a phenomenal non-fiction read exposing the ramifications of our device-driven society.

Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara informs us of the horrifying conditions cobalt miners in the Congo experience in an effort to keep up with the increasing world demand for cobalt. He claims that “the blood of the Congo powers our lives” and provides the unvarnished truth, alarming proof that many powerful companies are desperate to hide.

Cobalt is an essential ingredient of the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power our smartphones, laptops and electric cars. It’s a rare, silvery metal that is also used in many of our low-carbon innovations crucial to achieving our climate sustainability goals. It’s mined in the Katanga region, a part of the Congo that has more reserves than the rest of the world combined.

There is a vast disparity between the companies that sell products containing cobalt and the people who dig it out of the ground. I was horrified to read about the children and women who hand mine this metal for a mere dollar a day. They fear tunnel collapsing, working in radioactive water, and speaking out against their meagre wages.

We can’t just remove cobalt from our rechargeable batteries. It contributes to the batteries holding more charge and operating safely for longer time periods. If we remove it, we have to plug in our devices more often and risk batteries catching fire.

To put it in perspective, the battery packs in our electric cars take up to ten kilograms of cobalt - that’s more than one thousand times the amount needed in our smartphone batteries. Did you gasp?

Need another clear picture? Did you know that during the pandemic there was increased pressure put on Congolese cobalt extraction? Billions of us relied, more than ever, on our rechargeable batteries to continue remote working and schooling. It put pressure on the artisanal miners and many more children had to join the mining workforce to keep up with the demand and help their families survive. COVID protocols? What protocols? Non-existent. If they didn’t contract the virus and share it with their family causing death, they still stopped their education to provide for US.

While I was expecting more of a human interest story and I felt bogged down with the amount of information presented, I did realize the importance of this book. We ALL need to care about what’s happening here because we are all implicated. We are ALL powering the digital revolution. ALL OF US.

I’m struggling with the author’s final thoughts: “Lasting change is best achieved when the voices of those who are exploited are able to speak for themselves and are heard when they do so.” I do agree with his plea for accountability, rather than “zero-tolerance policies and hollow PR” focusing on human rights violations. One of his solutions may seem unattainable - “treat the artisanal miners as equal employees to the people who work at corporate headquarters.”

I may not have come away with a plan or many thoughts on how to help this crisis, but I was emotionally affected and was educated and this is what will fuel my future actions.

I’m grateful for the invitation to read this powerful book. I was gifted it by St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

[Biggus · Rating 1 out of 5]

This audiobook is 11 hours long. I was two hours in, and I thought, "where can he go with this?". The answer is; nowhere. Never in my life have I read a book with so much repetition. As another reviewer said, fascinating (and tragic) topic, but SO poorly written I am just at a loss for words. I read 9 hours of the 11, but I just cannot bear it any longer.

WE GET IT. Big mining is hiding the input of artisan mining. Big shock there. Here's me thinking mining companies only have the planet's wellbeing in mind. Anyone who believes that big tech is using only ethical means to source their minerals, please come see me, I have a nice cheap bridge you may be interested in.

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the last decade, the demand for cobalt has exploded with the transition to electric vehicles. Cobalt is needed to increase the density of the cathode in lithium ion batteries, it is what holds the charge. 75% of the world's Cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All of the mines are foreign owned, mainly by Chinese, but also Swiss, American and Canadian. These companies are making billions of dollars. Three quarters of the people of the Congo live in poverty, 9% have electricity, life expectancy is 60. Hundreds of thousands of Congolese, many of them young boys, work as "artisinal miners," a fancy term for subsistence labor, which earns them between 1-2 dollars per day and frequently cripples and kills them. Bringing awareness of these basic facts to people in the West is the one comendable thing I can say about Cobalt Red.

The book fails both as a narrative and in delivering any info beyond this general summary. The writing is embarassingly basic, like a high school book report. It reads like a travelogue. Siddharth Kara mechanically chronicles his journey through the Congo over 3 years. There is no narrative structure, he simply lists what happened to him. Almost every section ends with a cliched cliffhanger like "How could I have known this was only the beginning of the horrors I would find in the Congo."

There is a pattern that he follows to pad the 250 page length: difficult travel to a new mine, mention the threat of security, army and militias, transcribe 2 or 3 interviews with a child or parent describing their painful experience. Rinse and repeat. I may sound callous, but you gain no insight into the problem with this method. The names of the towns and people all blend into one. There is no characterization to the Congolese people. Each of them only get a few paragraphs, so they come off as a shallow silhouette of a human being.

There is also no depth to the research. Kara repeatedly states that you can not understand the Congo's problems without understanding its history. I agree. He then provides us with a shameful 15 pages summarizing the entire history of the Congo. This book is being touted by Joe Rogan and right-wing "free thinkers," and I can see why. The book is vaguely anti-imperialist but specifically anti-China. It is vaguely pro-environment but specifically anti-renewables. Kara offers nothing in terms of prescription and continually suggests that the people of the Congo would be treated better if the mines were American owned rather than Chinese.

[marta (sezon literacki) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oceniam książkę, nie tematykę. Wyzysk w kopalniach kobaltu w DRK jest absolutnie wstrząsający i tego chyba nie trzeba dodatkowo tłumaczyć. Ale książka nie jest według mnie najlepszym reportażem - przede wszystkim brak tu jasno określonej struktury, a autor wielokrotnie powtarza te same informacje. Skupia się niemal wyłącznie na tym, że w kopalniach często pracują (i równie często giną) dzieci, które musiały porzucić edukację by zapewnić byt rodzinie. Niestety można odnieść wrażenie, że Kara czasem lekceważąco wypowiada się na temat mieszkańców Konga, właściwie nie jest zainteresowany ich życiem i kulturą, poza niewolniczą pracą w kopalniach. „Krwawy kobalt” nie unika też najbardziej elementarnego błędu - stawia świat zachodni w roli wybawiciela uciśnionych Kongijczyków, którzy przedstawieni są jako bierne ofiary kapitalizmu. A to przecież ten sam zachodni świat jest tu oprawcą. To bardzo trudny temat do przedstawienia w rzetelny i empatyczny sposób i autorowi wyszło to, no cóż, średnio. Raczej są tu ogólniki, brakuje zgłębienia i przede wszystkim zrozumienia ludzi, o których pisze. Mam mocno mieszane odczucia, choć sam problem jest szalenie ważny i powinno się o nim mówić więcej.

[Rincey · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

The translator for my interviews, Augustin, was distraught after several days of trying to find the words in English that captured the grief being described in Swahili. He would at times drop his head and sob before attempting to translate what was said. As we parted ways, Augustin had this to say, “Please tell the people in your country, a child in the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones.”

This is one of those books that is so difficult to read, but also feels like something everyone needs to be aware of. The author does such a good job of highlighting both what is happening in Congo right now with the cobalt mines but also how the history of Congo is just littered with outsiders coming in and pillaging the country and its people for its valuable resources, leaving nothing behind for its residents. And everyone — the local government, international governments, technology companies, mining companies, and all of us in the West with our heavy consumer and wasteful mindset — is basically to blame.

[Beary Into Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been on a huge nonfiction kick lately and I must say I’ve been really enjoying them. I’m a bit behind on sharing my reviews but you will see them soon. All I can say for this one is just wow. I admit I didn’t know much about this until I received the book in the mail. While reading I could immediately tell that the author did their research. I learned so much! Honestly, this book can be extremely heavy at times but I powered through because I needed to know more. This is a book more people need to read because like me I doubt many knew about what was truly going on.

Thank you so much for the gifted copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Beata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifying, will stay with me for a long time!
OverDrive, thank you!

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry Morton Stanley’s stunt to become famous by finding Dr. Livingstone
unleashed catastrophic consequences on the Congo that reverberate to this day.
He could not have known when he began his search what was to come, just as
Livingstone could not have known that his discovery of quinine and explorations
Of the African interior would help pave way for the European colonization of the
continent. Nevertheless, by the time Stanley was bullying his way through the
upper Congo and swindling natives of their territory on behalf of King Leopold,
he surely had a sense of what was in store… Did he do it for the money? For
fame? To please a king? In the end, the why has little meaning, only the
consequences matter—a vile scramble for loot that continues to disfigure the
Congo 140 years later… There is no way to calculate the toll taken on the people
of the Congo since the time of Stanley’s newspaper stunt, and certainly not since
Diego Cao first set anchor in Loango Bay in 1482. For centuries, slavery and
violence have plagued the Congolese people, and the cobalt crush is the
latest menace adding to their misery. (pp 234-235)

Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara is a powerful document exposing the reality of the world that underpins our modern lives: the search for and mining of cobalt, the ore that supports our rechargeable lives. The largest deposit in the world is in Congo and its extraction continues the terrible tradition that has been present in this naturally blessed territory.

Kara traveled through the mining territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a pass procured from a government official. He had to hide much of his true purpose or he would have been prevented all access. Under the guise of observer and with the variable limits placed on his access at different settings, Kara was able to view several mines, conditions of the workers in most, and, in several situations, he was able to interview miners or family members without supervision. He had trusted guides and interpreters for virtually all of his travel.

What he learned made me angry and that anger is still with me. This industry that is enriching so many individuals and companies is literally killing and maiming people in Congo daily in mining disasters, disease secondary to pollution from the mining, lack of healthcare, miniscule wages. Even the supposed straight line in part of the industry from “good” corporate owners down to the workers is shown to be completely broken down. There is no “clean” supply that anyone can say their phone or car uses. The pledge of good practice is empty.

Kara does not offer answers but he has delineated the many problems that exist which points to areas that need to be addressed. They are many and huge: industry practices, DRC government practices and law, international law. This is a difficult book to read but important and I recommend it for those who want to know what powers the way we live, what the costs are…human, environmental, social…..

[Sandeep · Rating 1 out of 5]

Touted as an exposé of the politico-industrial complex that runs, benefits and exploits the people of Congo - this book suffers from the colonial, western gaze that almost completely (knowingly or unknowingly) erases local knowledge. The language used is often condescending and stinks of superiority. He somehow makes corporate impunity a Congo specific problem and something that does not happen in the West at all.

Sentences like the one below, while describing a woman from the mines, sound like something framed for a Hollywood film - deliberately milking an emotional response

"Grief pressed hard against her slender frame. Her wide eyes were sunk deep within her face. The bones in her wrists seemed to stand up above the flesh. Her teeth were clenched like a skeletons. The skin on her neck had striated discolorations that appeared like ribbons. She breathed with a raspy cadence, but the voice that emerged was somehow reminiscent of the soft song of a nightingale."

The Western guilt makes fleeting appearances but it is lost in the overall narrative. There is a point in the book where Kara recounts the conversation with the Congolese ambassador who “did not think a foreigner should be the one to make such a case on behalf of his people. He felt instead that the people of the Congo needed to speak for themselves about what was happening in their country, and he suggested that if I really wanted to help, I should go back and assist local researchers in doing so.” A point which seems to be completely lost on him!

This book reminded me of Binyavanga Wainaina's brilliant article in Granta called " How to write about Africa" where he writes brilliantly about colonial tropes and stereotypes that refuse to leave us. Kara's book has, predictably, received critical acclaim in the Western media which essentially reaffirms colonial perceptions of the DRC.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We Work in Our Graves"
Cobalt miners in Congo

‎1. Everyone [and I mean E V E R Y O N E] should be reading this book. With a highlighter and a notebook. And when they are done, they need to push it on every single person they know.

2. Once you have read this book, you will NEVER EVER look at your cell phone, tablet, ANYTHING that is rechargeable ever again. I am going to strive to keep my rechargeables as long as I possibly can. Because of our now dependence on electronics, there is little else we can do [this, and limit the amount of rechargeables one has in the home. I will be using mine until I cannot turn them on anymore and will only be purchasing new when that happens].

3. The idea that my phone has caused the death of a child in Congo is not only abhorrent, but devastating to me. Child labor is abhorrent in general, but the fact that much of the mining for cobalt is done by CHILDREN [as young as SIX YEARS OLD] and the companies that buy said cobalt have it in writing that there are no children at "THEIR" mines [because they clearly have never, ever set foot in Congo and in reality, don't want to know, as long as the money keeps coming in for them. Their lives and minds would change if they actually had to go there and SEE the littles mining this dangerous cobalt], and they don't engage in dangerous practices [again, SO not the truth]. We, as consumers of rechargeables, need to do better and hold these companies to account.

4. The last 3-4 chapters of this book will wreck you. If it does not, I would question whether you a) have a heart, and b) whether or not you might be a sociopath/psychopath. Reading about mine collapses and children dying got to be almost too much at times, and yet, I could not stop listening. And crying. And crying. And crying.

5. The author is very, very, brave. The people and children of Congo are very, very, brave [they do what they have to do to have lives, even though it is full of pain and poverty and more often than not, death]. The guides that took the author around and got people to talk to him are very, very, brave.
WHY are they brave? Because the author and the guides at any time could have been captured, jailed or just plain shot. The people that chose to speak to the author could have been shot. All for telling the truth. This is storytelling at its most dangerous and yet, the author never falters [even after witnessing a mine collapse in person <--I would have not dealt with that well at all, but for him, it just reinforced the need for this book to come out and for the truth about all that is going on in Congo to be published]. I admire them simply because they did what they needed to do to get the truth to the masses, no matter what [and some of that is covered in the acknowledgements and notes at the end. I may have cried all over again reading those]. Give this man all the awards.

Go and get this book. Be prepared for what you are reading. It will absolutely forever change you, and I can tell you, that is 100% not a bad thing.

I was extremely blessed to get an audiobook ARC for this read and I am so glad I did. The narration for this book was fantastic. I will be adding this narrator to my "must listen" list. He tells the story of Congo and cobalt and all that has happened to the author in a straightforward, easy to listen to way and I am so grateful to have received this audiobook; it made an already very difficult read a teeny bit easier.

I was asked to read/review this book by St. Martin's Press and I thank them, NetGalley, Siddharth Kara, Peter Ganim - Narrator and Macmillian Audio for providing both the ARC and the audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review. I also must thank all in Congo that were involved in the making of this book; may it bring your truth to the world and may we all be strong enough to make the change that needs to be made - your stories have forever changed me and I will never, ever, forget you.

[Kat V · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so depressing. I recommend pairing this with something comedic. We are all complicit in this and we need to do something NOW. We carry phones in our pockets that are worth more than these miners will see in a year. If that’s not enough you should be terrified about the uranium being smuggled into North Korea! I don’t think the book is organized particularly well but I think it’s really important and you should read it now. I wish this had ended with a call to action about something we could do to be less complicit in these horrors; right me I just feel hopeless. 4.3 stars

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book about cobalt mining practices. It's a book about unfettered corporate greed and the lack of international laws and human rights that allow the practices to continue. The deeper story here is about the nearly continuous exploitation, looting of labor and resources in the Congo by the world throughout history. The Congo can't overcome continuous economic colonization and the corruption of its own governing systems and the greed of its leaders. Truly despicable...

3.5 rounded up for keeping this inhumanity in sight

Listened to the audiobook. Peter Ganim did a good job of narration for these horrific conditions.

[Lawrence Grandpre · Rating 2 out of 5]

TDLR

A seemingly well meaning researcher engages with the neocolonial violence of cobalt mining in Africa and, while providing some useful info, projects such a degree of tragic noble savagery on his subject that the text cannot escape the genre of liberal trauma pornography it nominally seeks to exceed, obscuring western economic and political imperialism in the name of focusing on African corruption and Chinese greed.

The author is a former banker at Merrill Lynch, and it shows.

This subject is important, but don't read this book. Find a good podcast or article and save yourself a few hours.

Full review

Holy mother of queen Nzinga, is this book annoying.

I has to listen to the audiobook on 3x speed but to get through it. Every single interview is an African person saying "things are horrible here, better we die" and the authors lacks a in-depth understanding of native culture, religion, and DRC history to add nuance or present a solution beyond "western companies..do better".

It never occurs to the author that the western companies know full well what is going on, and don't care, or can't care enough to change stuff because the need to appease shareholders is too great. It never occurs to them that capitalism, itself, might be what is causing this violence. For the author, it is only the lack of rigorous application of human rights law, NGO supervision, and fair wages. What is a fair wage for this backbreaking work? What are the human rights standards that can keep up with the scale of this suffering? How do we square the INCREASING need for cobalt amid green transitions and the suffering of the Congo being maybe necessary, in the eyes of the global liberal utilitarian, “pragmatic” capitalist calculus the book tacitly accepts, to save the world from catastrophic climate change? Are market-based transitions of green tech enough to address climate change? If we did a (actually enforced) global carbon tax (without the BS market based carbon credit loopholes) and cut the carbon emissions at the source? would that be better than a massive market-driven EV shift and the genocidal cobalt mining it necessitates being our best shot vs. climate change? Maybe if we redistribute economic wealth we no longer need a world of rapacious economic growth, which necessitates global violence through mining not just in the Congo, but worldwide (look at Jason Hickel's work for more on how even without climate change constant economic growth=ecological and social catastrophe)?

My critique is not that this text doesn't answer all these questions. No text can. My critique is that it appears the author has never even considered these concerns might be relevant to this text at all. It's not accident this book was long listed for book of the year by, of all people, the Financial Times. By focusing on individual instance of tragedy and framing the solution, not as increased global labor power, or socialism, or communism, or any political intervention other than voluntary price increases paid to miners and improving conditions, the text naturalizes global capitalism and the wester political order that produced it, while claiming to be a critique of its excesses.

This is not superfluous when the authors cites, superficially as it is, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, whose death he chalks up to "the Americans, Belgians, french, and Congolese rivals". This obscures the dominate role played by the Americans and the CIA. The author says nothing of substance on the Cold War and seems completely ignorance of the nonaligned movement the attempt to leverage the soviets against the Americas as a tool to maintain maximum leverage to have self-determination and benefit from their own indigenous mineral wealth. The author notes the excesses of the separatist movements while footnoting that the DRC itself is an arbitrary political construction of colonialism with a natural heterogeneity of peoples, geographies, and cultures that western nations have exploited for years before now. There is a shady character who traffics in child labor whose pseudonym is “Iran”, an allusion to Lebanese interests using cobalt mining to launder money for Hezbollah (a bit on the nose, isn't it). There is no analysis of the coop against Mohammad Mosaddegh and the propping up of the Shah of Iran, the occupation of Palestine or the wars against Lebanon by Israel and the West creating context for this reality. Finally, the text gives a pass to and tacit cover for the World Bank, IMF and western institutions which benefited from propping up dictators and creating weak states during the Cold War and after.

The author literally says,"people in Congo say the NGOs are hustling, but in my experience they are nice people, so I don't think this is true". The complete ignorance of the critiques of the non-profit/white savior industrial complex are pretty stunning.

Mobutu and his successors didn't just fall out of a coconut tree. They were a manifestation of the very political order the author is calling upon to make a moral appeal to on behalf of the oppressed people of the Congo. Something about the oppressed making a moral appeal to the oppressor as an effective political methodology makes sense to the author, as the author seems to present a tacit argument that it was the human rights excess of Leopold that led to him losing sole control of the Congo state. This obscures not only indigenous resistance, but the larger system of colonial political machination and a desire to shield other state from the negative perception of colonialism Leopold's Congo was producing.

Moreover, by talking about corruption without this historical context, the author simply takes a combo "blame the victim" approach by solidifying notions of the “resource curse” creating corruption while adding a new spice to the old dish of "Africans simply cannot rule themselves well" by blaming the Chinese for this exploitation. There it no doubt blame to go around, but the author chooses to hate the player rather than hate the game of global neocolonial geopolitics, creating a notion of exceptional Chinese racism and greed rather than seeing it as a reflection of the larger system of global economic imperialism.

It never occurs to him that Africans have complex social and political lives he is not privy to. He even says "the people there do not smile". I would say "It is possiable they don't smile, though this would run counter to everything I know about African culture and African people worldwide. No matter how intense their opression is throughout history, I've never heard of African people not smiling. Is it at all possible they merely choose not to smile...around you?" The author refuses to see himself as a force shaping the reality he sees. Of course they will politic their brokenness to you, we know a mark when we see one, but we're not going to talk to you about indigenous healers, indigenous spiritual beliefs (see the work of Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau, an author I doubt Kara has even heard of, on this point) or political resistance that might be brewing, because we don't trust you. This also reminds me of the Fanon line "the smile of the other is always a gift", where African people know the choice so often presented is dour, angry darky or happy go lucky, carefree darky. By closing the former the author seems to genuinely think that this is accurate reflection of the internal life of people in the Congo rather than a reflection of them not trusting this parachute do-gooder academic. The levels of ignorance are frankly stunning.

It's wild to me that after a decade of BLM and checking people on their racist and political ignorance that a text this bad can be celebrated by the NPR liberals of the world. I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but this feels like an article that got stretched into a book. This is just objectively not a good book, and it's wild that mainstream, academic, and media gate keeping institutions are gaslighting folks into thinking it is.

This book seems tailor-made for liberal virtue signaling. I can just hear the readers impressing his/her friend group by saying "Did you know your iPhone kills Africans" and spit facts from this book at boring dinner parties with hummus and crudités. These friends can then retweet, or put on Bluesky or Mastodon or wherever good liberals post these days.

Finally, refer to the work of Siddiyah Hartman, Scenes of Subjection. As much as liberal imagination wants to believe these tales of suffering make change, there is a clear voyeurism and horror movie like titillation audience get from these depictions that often overrides the political value of these representations. Without explicit focus on the those who cause the violence and their autonomous political resistance, depiction of Black suffering more often serves to naturalize the notion the Black people are naturally cursed and destine to suffer in slavery. On this scale, this book is one of the worst offenders I have seen in a while. Violence in Congo is shown as trans-historic, unchanging, and all but inevitable, unless good people of the global north come and save them. Indigenous agency and the complex cultural and political action of these people, that would actually humanize them, is crowed out by these depictions of Blacks as broken, suffering slaves.

If you find Black suffering titillating, watch the NFL or boxing or MMA. Don't use the people of Africa to get your voyeuristic violence fix, mixed with a degree of smug moral catharsis.

[Jo Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tend to think of myself as somewhat unshockable, by no means heartless, just aware of how messed up this world can be. Cobalt mining was on my radar, I had an awareness that as a consumer I was part of the problem, I still agree that I’m part of the problem, the majority of us are and I didn’t walk away from the book knowing how we individuals solve this problem. I finished this journalistic expose completely shocked to the core, I felt an enormous amount of guilt. I’m stunned. I’m saddened. I’m disgusted. I wonder if anything has changed?! I want to tell you that I’m throwing all the damned devices away and never using them again, therein lies the biggest issue, I can’t do that, i need them. I wish I had the answers. I had to take several breaks from reading, I had absolutely not even close to a clue that it was this bad.

A shocking, upsetting but necessary read.

All the stars 🌟
#Jorecommends

[Krysia o książkach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wstrząsające.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author brings us with him into Congo, hunting for cobalt, a chemical element needed in rechargeable batteries. Most of the reserves are in the Congo, a land that has been robbed of its resources for hundreds of years. It hasn’t changed. Corruption means that the people actually doing the mining get only a pittance. Many of them are children. There is an intricate system keeping them in check, basically enslaving them.

For all Apple, Tesla and other companies supply chain vows of not having child labor and caring about human rights, there products still contain cobalt mined in the Congo.

The author is asked at the end that “have you understood what it’s like?” from a miner. “Yes, you work in horrible conditions…” He is interrupted.

“No, we work in our graves”.

This is the truth. The mines regularly collapse, burying workers. Either for a slow or fast death by asphyxiation. That is the human cost of our western world’s “green movement” of rechargeable batteries. Death of Congolese children, every day.

[Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironically I found this book using a device powered by a lithium battery and I am now writing a review on another device powered by a lithium battery which uses cobalt. In the 21st century, it is unavoidable to forgo any device powered by a lithium battery. It's importance now rivals oxygen. I am not talking about a personal use standpoint where we can send selfies or shitpost on social media. I am speaking from an infrastructure standpoint, where critical infrastructure we rely on are powered by these devices such as police, hospitals, transportation, innovation in climate science etc. It is unavoidable, these devices are essential to our lives and are woven into the fabric of society. However, we rarely ask where do they come from? How are they made? Maybe because we don't want to know the answer. From Apple workers jumping out of buildings to their deaths in China, in some cases using reported slave labor. To resource extraction from countries who have rich deposits of these materials which deliver the demand to the global market so these technologies can be built. This brings us to this book and the mines excavating cobalt in the Congo. The richest corporations in the world have assured us "There is no child labor in our supply chains" etc etc. This is a lie and it cannot be understated just how much of a lie it is. Not to mention the men and women in the Congo who're of age working in mines who're exploited in a way that make you question what century it is. Indeed, the cobalt mining industry in the DRC would make colonial captures of its past proud. Let us dive into this book.

Unless you're extremely naive this book is exactly what you think it is, the poorest people on the planet being exploited by the richest on the planet. The mines in Congo represent a hierarchy of exploitation from every level to the top where the level below is exploited by the level above in a long series of steps in its supply chain. The conditions in the mines are brutal, the book features heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story of gruesome injuries occurring often times to children. If you listened to Vietnam war veterans talk about their injuries (on both sides), I am not sure you could really discern a difference between the injuries from the miners to people in actual wars. They're both gruesome, one involves bullets and the other involves gashes from falls, tunnel collapses and many more scenarios of horrific accidents. Children are mining, their family need money and cannot support themselves so they work often times for under a $1 a day. The way the system is setup is to exploit every citizen in the Congo so they will have no other choice but to mine.

The schools require fees and often times the family has to take their child out of school so they can mine and support the family. In the mines there are no protective gear or guidelines given to the miners except for one mine according to the book. Not to mention women are often times abused and sexually assaulted in the mines, this was for all mines except one mine which protected women. The toxic materials from the mine pollute the entire population surrounding the mine, the workers work to barely make ends meets, doing physical work which has a very short life span before injuries set in. They have no other choice. This is their only option to provide for their family, indeed the Congo government has likely siphoned off the payments from the mines back into western bank accounts for a selected few and the entire world looks the other way in exchange for access. It's telling that a politician name Patrice Lumumba would rise to power in the early 1960's. In the the time of the Soviet Union communist scare, he rose to power rallying against corporations stealing the value of the land of its people only to be ousted in interventionism by the US and Belgium. They ended up torturing him and killing him. Installing a crude dictator in exchange for access to resources and an ally that would not do dealings with the soviet union.


The book features soldier's exploiting miners, sexually assaulting women, shooting children to give them their findings at undercut prices. Tunnels that go down to a length of 60 meters which inevitably collapse killing everyone inside. They know they're risking their lives but they ask

"What other choice do we have?".

Indeed, they have no other choice. The money made from the mines are not being invested back into communities so when the mines run dry, the people will still have nothing left which is the ever winding cycle of exploitation in Africa. Whats going on in the Congo is abhorrent conditions, child labor, under reporting of deaths from mining facilities and companies lying about where their cobalt comes from. It is a failure of everyone involved including consumers who maybe powerless to stop these things but no doubt we're involved for not putting pressure on companies to push for better working conditions for these people. I don't know how to create that pressure or what campaign to create but I am hoping this comes to light more and more when we talk about supply chains. Where these materials are coming from and how they're being created. Right now companies have vapid statements that are false. These are all brands that we have in our living rooms, our garages and our communities. I am not sure what can be done but I am hoping this book becomes mainstream.


4 stars.

[Natú · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cobalt Red is a slog to read, for a couple reasons, and what you get out of it largely depends on the outlook you approach it with.

First and foremost is the subject matter. The book ennumerates the grim hazards faced every day by artisanal miners in the DRC, the exploitative structure of artisanally-mined ore procurement, and the positionality of the DRC within a world economic system of strategically-targeted underdevelopment. These are very important topics, and while it is true, as some publications have noted, that Kara's exposé is not as groundbreaking as the blurbs may lead one to believe, the author does provide solid descriptions of the process of artisanal mining and how the supply chain it fits into disenfranchises workers, while laundering the conditions ore is extracted under - to the benefit of corporations abroad. The details are sordid and shocking, and are a heavy read.

Now, the challenges that come not as a result of the content, but the writing. First of all, Kara's writing is chock-full of overly florid and, as others have noted (see https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyo...), dehumanizing language reminiscent of the muckraking yellow journalism of a century ago. Kara's belief that readers need to be battered into empathy for Congolese miners and their families through what often amounts to little more than invasive torture porn is belittling to the reader and self-centering under the guise of altruism towards his subjects. One moment, where he describes how many of the miners have never seen a smart phone - despite working themselves to the bone mining a key component in their batteries - was eerily similar to an anecdote in a decade-old This American Life episode titled "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory" that had to be retracted due to factual inaccuracies. Mike Daisey, the author of that TAL piece, excused the inaccuracies as a tool he used to elicit empathy in the audience, while remaining faithful to the actual conditions and plight of Chinese factory workers. I have no reason to doubt the factual nature of Kara's account, but the worrying implications are similar; his tone seems to say: look at these poor wretches! How will their lot improve unless I, through my heroic efforts, expose their plight, and you, dear listener, open your heart to them?

The next issue is Kara's ethical approach. There are numerous times where Kara's interviews come only after prying insistence, often at the great emotional distress of interviewees or their loved ones, all for the sake of Kara's sensationalism. Once, after badgering the parents of a boy direly injured in a mining accident into granting an interview, the boy's father grabs Kara and basically says "are you happy now?!"

Kara's response to many miners' incredulity at the suggestion that this exposé will do anything to improve their lives is condescending and paternalistic, as is his diagnosing of the overarching problems and solutions. While correctly pointing out the role of imperialism and predatory corporations in the underdevelopment of the DRC, Kara's depiction of local actors is pathologizing and sorts all Congolese into two monolithic camps: poor uneducated peons and archetypal corrupt big men. At every step, in his attempt to convince the reader of the dignity and humanity of his subjects, he infantilizes them and centers his own experience.

His very project is guilty this. Kara paints a political scene in the DRC of systemic graft and pilfering, so any internal reform is moot; likewise, Kara states that he believes violence is never the answer, tempting though it might be. The only logical solution in his mind, therefore, is for consumers and stakeholders to remedy their procurement practices and clean up supply chains; to eschew the current modus operandi of handing out fat dividends to shareholders and cheap electronics to buyers in the global north out of a sense of benevolence - because that's worked so well for South Asian garment workers, factory workers in East Asia, and so on. You can see why many of his interviewees can be felt rolling their eyes at Kara as he speaks to them.

[Wick Welker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Child labor is happening right now in Congo.

Imagine you are an 8 year old girl who wants to go to school, as children should. But the public schools are underfunded so the schools must charge about 5 dollars a semester for you to attend. Unfortunately your family cannot afford to pay for school. You father is an “artisanal” miner who extracts crude cobalt from a local mine which is mixed with copper, tin, lead and traces of uranium. He has no equipment to mine, only rebar and flip flops. No supplies are provided because he is a freelance artisanal miner who allegedly works for himself and sells a bag of cobalt at the end of the day for $2 dollars. This money is used directly to feed you and your family. Unfortunately, your dad was killed a month ago in a tunnel collapse in the mine. Your mother also works in the mine, carrying your baby brother, who is 1 month old, in a sling while she washes raw ore in a pool that is contaminated with heavy metals. Your mother is also under constant threat of sexual harassment, assault and rape as she works at the mines. Heavy metals, including cobalt, lead, copper and even uranium, are also in your mother’s blood stream, leeching through the breast milk and they are also flowing through your body as well. So what are you to do as this 8 year old girl in these circumstances?

You mine cobalt.

And thus continues the cycle of child labor that supplies the vast majority of cobalt to the global supply chain. And what is this cobalt used for? Rechargeable lithium batteries in phones, laptops and electric vehicles.

So, how can this be? How can this be allowed? It is a vast, intricate and willfully ignorant system to perpetuate the continued exploitation of the people of Congo. Everyone is complicit. Everyone.The Congolese government doesn’t fund public schools or provide infrastructure and profits greatly off of taxing and embezzling from the Congo trade. The mining companies and cooperatives are mostly owned by the Chinese who don’t give a damn about the working conditions of the artisanal miners. The supply chains themselves of cobalt are all mixed together from industrial “child-labor” free mines and artisanal mines so the entire industry uses child labor. The tech giants don’t technically own any of the mines and willfully look the other way when the suppliers claim that they are child-labor free. It is an entire complex that keeps the Congolese people slaves to the cobalt mines. It’s all by design and meant to be kept in the dark.

The author exposes the entire operation. Over the course of several years, he visits dozens of mines and learns and investigates every inch of the supply chain. This book is full of anecdotes and financial analysis that comes to the unassailable conclusion: your rechargeable battery was made from the blood and poverty of enslaved Congolese people including their children. As you read these words, this is happening right this minute in Congo. The author also provides the long and tragic history of the exploitation of Congo starting with King Leopold and how every resource from the land, including human slave labor, diamonds, rubber and now cobalt have been forced from the land using violence, CIA-back coups, genocide, rape, torture and murder.

READ THIS BOOK