And The Oscar Goes To...

Each time Hollywood gives the Oscar to a winner for the first time, history is made on the night, and TV watchers like myself relish to see the moment when the winner ascends the podium to give the "Thank You" speech. Protocol demands that the speech remain under 60 seconds, but this can pose a challenge for first-time winners--remember Halle Berry's bizarre lip-locking with Russell Crowe when she made history as the first black woman to win an Oscar, but then forgetting to thank her co-star Billy Bob Thornton.

So all week I was worried how Djimon Hounsou, the male model turned actor who left his native Benin at age 13, wandered the streets of Paris as a vagrant, before he was discovered by fashion designer Thierry Mugler, would handle his "Thank You" speech if he won, becoming the first male African to win the Oscar. "Blood Diamond," the movie he co-starred in alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, was nominated for five Academic Awards, including the nomination for best supporting actor in a Hollywood drama, for which Djimon was nominated.

But "Blood Diamond" was shut out in all categories. Hollywood missed a glorious chance to make history by failing to give Djimon the award. Well, forget the Oscar, because Djimon's portrayal in the movie of Solomon Vandy, the Mende fisherman who loses his son and is forced to work in a diamond field by the ragtag Revolution United Front(RUF), has helped convinced the world that what went on in Sierra Leone-- and Liberia as well-- was fuelled, in large part, by the the West's voracious obsession for diamonds or "blood diamonds."

Even though Djimon did not win the Oscar, of which I am so disappointed, the tale and intrigues that drive the plot of "Blood Diamond" is an all too familiar experience of how innocent lives are lost in the crossfire, becoming the collateral damage in conflicts where mercenaries served as the middle-man between local warring groups and multinationals desperately seeking to benefit from the spoils of war.

As a consequence, "Blood Diamond will, perhaps, play a significant role in helping to implement the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which is designed to certify the origin of diamonds from sources devoid of conflict. Many countries, including Liberia, have affixed their signatures to this document, which was established in 2002 to prevent rival rebel groups from financing their war aims from diamonds.

To this end, we must congratulate Hollywood, and especially director Edward Zwick, for masterminding the telling of a story against the backdrop of a civil war where a local farmer, a diamond smuggler, and a relentless journalist are brought together, each wanting to outsmart the other. In the end, what you have is a classical movie. For me , the Oscar goes to Djimon Hounsou to say the least.