Read My Pins_ Stories From a Diplomat's Jewel Box - Madeleine Albright [20]
In 1999, I visited a camp for amputees in Sierra Leone. It was a sweltering, muddy, crowded place. I remember especially holding a three-year-old girl who wore a red jumper and played with a toy car, using the only arm she had. Like many poor countries, Sierra Leone required voters to dip their fingers into indelible ink to prevent double-voting. The best-equipped rebel group felt it could frustrate the elections by chopping off the hands of potential voters, including children. This militia, and others in Angola and Congo, was financed in part by what came to be known as “blood” or “conflict” diamonds. These were diamonds seized and trafficked by armed groups that killed indiscriminately, often employing preteen soldiers.
Human rights activists appealed to me to try to stop the commercial use of such stones to fuel civil wars in Africa. I agreed. We supported a diplomatic initiative—known as the Kimberley Process—that is now accepted by every major diamond-producing and diamond-consuming country. Its purpose is to ensure that the much-coveted stones are traded legitimately from the time they leave a mine until the moment they appear in storefront windows. Like any such system, it is not leakproof, but it has done much to squeeze the profit out of blood diamonds, in part because the process has been widely backed by legitimate dealers. No responsible company wants to contribute to the success of thugs who start wars out of greed and hack off the limbs of children.
As a matter of policy, this story has an encouraging ending. On a personal level, it is even better. In 2007, I learned that the little girl in the red jumper whom I had tried to comfort in Sierra Leone had found adoptive parents and is now a happy and healthy teenager living on the same street as I do in Washington, D.C.
Panther, Cartier.
Trailing Eagle, Les Bernard.
IV. “It Would Be an Honor”
The twentieth of January 2001 was my final day as secretary of state. I imagined that the incoming staff might have to drag me out of my office by the heels, but in the end I went peacefully. I had had my time; now it was the turn of others. That is how democracy works.
In my new life, I have worn many hats—as author, professor, speaker, and businesswoman. I serve as chair of the National Democratic Institute and president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and have led task forces on poverty, genocide, and Arab democracy. World affairs remain my preoccupation, which means I continue to crisscross the globe. I also enjoy, now more than ever, wearing and collecting pins.
COURTESY OF WILLIAM J. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY/SHARON FARMER
I wore the Trailing Eagle pin for our official cabinet photo in 2000, my last full year as secretary of state.
This pen and book pin was a gift from my sister, Kathy Silva, upon the completion of my memoir, Madam Secretary. Fountain pen, Carolee; book, designer unknown.
In Las Vegas years ago, I was booked to give a speech to a gathering of executives from the travel industry. The woman who organized the event asked what pin I intended to wear. I replied that I had brought only a necklace. She was aghast: “But that’s impossible; we all expect you to wear a pin.” Hours remained before the speech, and Las Vegas shops are always open, so I had little trouble finding something suitable. Since that time, I have learned to accept that when I appear in public, a pin is part of the package.
Fame, of course, is relative. In recent years, I have been mistaken in one venue or another for Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Bush, Judi Dench, Helen Thomas, some nice young fellow’s Aunt Agatha, and the television weather lady in Minneapolis. Confusing my face with that of someone else is—in my ledger—a misdemeanor. Ignorance of my pins, however, is a felony. Among former foreign ministers, one of my closest friends is Joschka Fischer of Germany. After I left office, I was