Under the Radar: Individual Advancement and Societal Progress
Although far removed from international headlines, increasing numbers of Africans are succeeding at the very highest levels of the industry. The examples of Tokyo Sexwale and Nompumelelo “Mpumi” Zikalala of South Africa illustrate this ascension and suggest that the Africanization of the industry on the continent is well under way.
Tokyo Sexwale is a veteran of the ANC’s struggle against South Africa’s apartheid regime, having spent time in prison on Robben Island. In 1994, he swept into political office as a member of the widely victorious ANC, elected to serve as the premier of Guateng Province. In 1998, he resigned this post and purchased a series of alluvial mines along the Orange River from a company whose origins could be traced back to one of the founding fathers of diamond mining in Africa: Barney Barnato. Surely, the symbolic nature of this transaction was not lost on this upstart mining executive. Two years later, Sexwale exchanged these mines for shares in Trans Hex, a major mining enterprise based in Cape Town, acquiring an 8 percent share in the company and assuming the role of deputy chairman. Since then, Sexwale has enjoyed further commercial success within the diamond sector and beyond, including his current role as South Africa’s Minister of Human Settlements. His accomplishments show that Africans can, and will, play important roles in shaping the industry.
Nompumelelo “Mpumi” Zikalala’s ascension has flown even further under the global media’s radar, but it is, if anything, even more newsworthy. Her involvement in the mining industry dates back to 1996, when she commenced her De Beers–funded studies in chemical engineering. Roughly a decade later, she became the first female general manager of De Beers’s Kimberley Mines. Yet Zikalala seems to be unfazed by her rather unlikely success at the world’s most storied diamond enterprise. As she once explained, “[Because] I’ve grown within the company . . . it is easy for me as De Beers has a high percentage of women. Internally it’s a normal thing, but some external people still find it different.”[136]She confirmed these persisting industry attitudes, recalling, “In Kimberley I had people coming through saying, ‘Hi, could we please speak to Mr Zikalala,’ and I would say, ‘There is no Mr Zikalala, only Ms Zikalala.’” In 2008, she became the general manager of Voorspoed, the De Beers mine that produces coveted pink diamonds—the first woman, and also the youngest, to serve in this capacity for the mining giant. In fact, although the percentage of women in mining in South Africa remains at less than 10 percent overall, at Voorspoed it is closer to 35 percent. Zikalala also proudly reminds us that these female employees are not restricted to office positions. “They’re not all secretaries, accountants and human resources employees[;] the women that we have do the technical side of things as well.” Although diamond mining has long been dominated by men, Zikalala and her colleagues may well be the future face(s) of the industry on the continent, not just the recipients and wearers of the lustrous stones.
Hope for the Industry’s Forgotten Participants
At the bottom of the diamond hierarchy are the most vulnerable members in this multibillion-dollar industry: artisanal miners. More than a million Africans are currently engaged in artisanal mining on the continent’s alluvial deposits, supplying most of the 20 percent of global output that is produced in this manner. These individuals operate under extremely challenging conditions, and they and their families are almost always mired in poverty. Residing on the social and economic margins, these “absolute poor,” as the UN defines them, are also regular victims of violence at the hands of aggressive police, private security forces and criminal gangs. And, when diamond sanctions hit producing countries, these subsistence miners are inordinately—often devastatingly—affected.
One positive development on this otherwise discouraging front has been the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI), which grew out of the KP. First proposed by De Beers, the company teamed up with a group of NGOs, including Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), to form the DDI and turn the industry’s attention to the all-but-forgotten artisanal miner. The list of funding entities also includes renowned jewelers, such as Tiffany & Co., as well as the governments of Sweden, England, and Belgium. Dorothée Gizenga, a Congolese Canadian with experience in both the government in Ottawa and PAC, has served as the executive director of the organization since 2008. Under her leadership, the DDI has been engaged in a wide variety of projects, including removing children from artisanal mining in the DRC and setting minimum, industry-wide standards regarding social, economic, environmental, labor, trading, and governance issues for mining operations in developing countries. Although it is still too early to assess the efficacy of the DDI, the initiative has already substantially improved the lives of many of Africa’s artisanal miners.
Concluding Remarks
Almost a century and a half has passed since Erasmus Jacobs picked up a glimmering stone in the South African veld and forever altered the world’s diamond landscape. Since that time, Africa has remained at the heart of the industry. Yet, the continent’s once lofty position has slipped somewhat: as of last year, Africa could claim only six of the world’s top ten producers. As consumers have an increasing number of choices regarding the provenance of their diamonds, it is more important than ever that Africa generate “clean” gems and further distance itself from the “blood diamond” era. Thankfully for African producers, the pieces are in place to continue this ongoing process, and the most recent signs have been encouraging. The Kimberley Process, the Diamond Development Initiative, and the personal examples of Sexwale and Zikalala suggest that Africa has turned an important corner in its complex relationship with its diamond resources. However, major diamond-related issues, including the extreme violence in Zimbabwe and the DRC, remain unresolved, and the 2012 guilty verdict in the trial of Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor offered a painful reminder of diamond-fueled greed and brutality in Africa’s recent past. If, as De Beers’s famous advertising has suggested, “A Diamond Is Forever,” government and industry leaders on the continent will need to continue to take measures to ensure that “vain” consumers, like those cited by Harry Oppenheimer at the outset of this chapter, will regard their purchases of Africa’s stones with pride, rather than shame. With that in mind, thinking back to the first pages of this book and knowing what you now know, would you purchase an African diamond?
Study Guide and Selected Readings
Digging Deeper
This section is intended for readers and instructors who wish to delve more deeply into the book’s contents via further discussion and/or reading. For each chapter, questions are posed that are intended to generate conversation about the various topics examined in the book, followed in each case by an ensuing list of relevant source materials, referred to as “selected readings,” which include films, websites, articles, and books. The secondary sources identified typically elaborate on the particular themes explored in the book, while the reports and documents found on the websites listed constitute ideal primary source materials on/around which to build course assignments or simply assist with more focused research.
Chapter 1—An Introduction to Africa’s Diamonds
Chapter 1 introduces readers to the global history of diamonds, with a focus on the importance of these stones to Africa’s past and present. It frames the narrative and engages with the core themes that are considered in the ensuing chapters.
Discussion Questions
1. Owing to a range of media reports and popular culture expression, global citizens are becoming increasingly aware of the African origins of much of the world’s diamond supply. How had you been exposed to Africa’s diamonds before reading this book? How did these sources typically portray these diamonds? After reading this book, have your impressions changed? If so, in what ways?
2. Mineral deposits have greatly influenced the human experience in every region of the world. How has the mineral wealth of the United States shaped its history? In what ways do these historical
influences in America compare and contrast with the African scenario?
3. Global societies have long placed considerable value on diamonds. Why have these stones historically been so coveted? Does this allure explain the extremely limited success that industrial diamonds have had in the jewelry market?
4. There has been extensive debate about whether natural resource deposits constitute a “blessing” or a “curse” for their respective host countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. After reading the book, do you think Africa’s diamonds have been a “blessing,” a “curse,” both, or neither? How would you characterize America’s mineral deposits?
Selected Readings
Epstein, Edward Jay. “Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?” Atlantic, February 1, 1982.
———. The Rise and Fall of Diamonds: The Shattering of a Brilliant Illusion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
Green, Timothy. The World of Diamonds. New York: William Morrow, 1981.
Greene, Graham. The Heart of the Matter. London: Heinemann, 1948.
Hart, Matthew. Diamond: The History of a Cold-Blooded Love Affair. New York: Plume, 2002.
Kendall, Leo P. Diamonds: Famous and Fatal, The History, Mystery and Lore of the World’s Most Precious Gem. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2001.
Zoellner, Tom. The Heartless Stone: A Journey through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire. New York: St. Martin’s, 2006.
Chapter 2—Africa’s Mineral Wealth: Material and Mythical
Chapter 2 examines external notions of Africa as a treasure trove of mineral wealth in the pre-Kimberley period, as well as some of the mining endeavors in which Africans were engaged that helped fuel these impressions. The chapter explores the often divergent ways that Africans and outsiders regarded these resources and how, over time, these valuations shaped Africans’ encounters with those Europeans and Asians who reached the continent’s shores.
Discussion Questions
1. Outsiders have long been attracted to Africa’s mineral wealth—both real and imagined—notions of which in many instances reached mythical proportions. What role(s) did Christianity play in this process? And, for their part, how did Africans pique these “outsiders’” initial interest in these mineral endowments and subsequently fuel external images of the continent as a “treasure trove”?
2. Despite this long-standing external interest, Africans were able to safeguard their mineral deposits for centuries. How was this possible, and why did their ability to do so begin to erode?
3. Although Europeans had relatively limited success in locating Africa’s legendary mineral deposits, notions of the continent’s mineral riches persisted. Why was it so important for Africa to be a land of immense mineral wealth in the European imagination?
4. Much time has passed since the early impressions of Africa as a “treasure trove” developed and considerably more is now known about its geology, yet greatly exaggerated notions of Africa’s mineral wealth continue to persist. What connects these original, grandiose impressions with those that circulate today, centuries later?
Selected Readings
Birmingham, David. Portugal and Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999.
Bovill, E. W. The Golden Trade of the Moors. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Brooks, Michael E. “Prester John: A Reexamination and Compendium of the Mythical Figure Who Helped Spark European Expansion.” PhD dissertation, University of Toledo, 2009.
Curtin, Philip D. “The Lure of Bambuk Gold.” Journal of African History 14, no. 4 (1973): 623–31.
Elkiss, Terry H. The Quest for An African Eldorado: Sofala, Southern Zambezia, and the Portuguese, 1500–1865. Waltham, MA: Crossroads Press, 1981.
Garrard, Timothy F. “Myth and Metrology: The Early Trans-Saharan Gold Trade.” Journal of African History 23, no. 4 (1982): 443–61.
McIntosh, Susan Keech. “A Reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus, Island of Gold.” Journal of African History 22, no. 2 (1981): 145–58.
Newitt, Malyn. Portugal in European and World History. London: Reaktion Books, 2009.
Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Wilks, Ivor. “Wangara, Akan, and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” In Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas, edited by Peter Bakewell, 1–39. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1997.
Chapter 3—From Illusion to Reality: The Kimberley Discoveries, the Diamond “Rush,” and the “Wild West” in Africa
Chapter 3 considers the explosion of mining in South Africa following the discovery of the Eureka Diamond and the identification of significant diamond concentrations in the late 1860s in and around what became the commercial center of Kimberley. Although African diggers held their own for some time following the discoveries, they were eventually pushed to the margins to make way for foreign capital and local white mining interests.
Discussion Questions
1. Despite Africans’ strategic participation in the initial diggings in South Africa, their access was steadily eroded. How did this happen? Can you think of analogous situations in America? Elsewhere in the world?
2. The early decades of mining caused significant environmental destruction. Should this devastation be understood as a “necessary evil” of diamond mining operations of all types? Are contemporary states and mining companies more attentive to the environment than governments and (both corporate and small-scale) miners were during the early Kimberley period? Why or why not?
3. De Beers grew from a promising firm into the industry behemoth. Given the social, economic, and political realities on the ground in South Africa, was this type of emergence, and eventual dominance, inevitable? How much of De Beers’s exponential growth is personally attributable to Cecil Rhodes? The Oppenheimers?
Selected Readings
Lewsen, Phyllis, ed. Selections from the Correspondence of J. X. Merriman. Vol. 1, 1870–1890. Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1960.
Matthews, Z. K. Freedom for My People: The Autobiography of Z. K. Matthews: Southern Africa, 1901 to 1968. London: Rex Collings, 1981.
Morton, William J. “The South African Diamond Fields, and a Journey to the Mines.” Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 9 (1877): 66–83.
Newbury, Colin. The Diamond Ring: Business, Politics, and Precious Stones in South Africa, 1867–1947. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Robertson, Marian. Diamond Fever: South African Diamond History 1866–9 from Primary Sources. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Shillington, Kevin. “The Impact of the Diamond Discoveries on the Kimberley Hinterland: Class Formation, Colonialism, and Resistance among the Tlhaping of Griqualand West in the 1870s.” In Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa: African Class Formation, Culture, and Consciousness, 1870–1930, edited by Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone, 99–118. New York: Longman, 1982.
Turrell, Rob. “The 1875 Black Flag Revolt on the Kimberley Diamond Mines.” Journal of Southern African Studies 7, no. 2 (1981): 194–235.
Turrell, Robert Vicat. Capital and Labour on the Kimberley Diamond Fields, 1871–1890. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Williams, Gardner F. The Diamond Mines of South Africa: Some Account of Their Rise and Development. London: Macmillan, 1902.
Worger, William H. South Africa’s City of Diamonds: Mine Workers and Monopoly Capitalism in Kimberley, 1867–1895. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
Chapter 4—Consolidation and Control: The Birth and Growth of the Cartel
Chapter 4 explores the means by which De Beers revolutionized the diamond industry and over time became internationally synonymous with these stones. Although the pioneering company remarkably achieved a near monopoly on the supply of rough stones and was able to powerfully manipulate consumer demand, it faced significant challenges throughout the course of its meteoric commercial ascension.
Di
scussion Questions
1. Although Kimberley society was sharply divided along racial lines, the emerging mining companies quickly and effectively subjugated and harnessed both white and black workers. Can you think of parallels in other contexts? Other industries?
2. In many respects, regional Africans had few survival options other than to work on the diamond mines. What political, social, and economic developments served to “push” Africans to the mining companies?
3. The transition to underground mining ushered in a new era of operations that was extremely lucrative for the companies that facilitated and oversaw it. But how did the African work force fare, and what new challenges did they face?
4. The introduction of compounds drastically altered the experiences of the African labor force. What were some of the reasons that mining companies were motivated to adopt compounds and to subsequently upgrade them? Were they operationally necessary, or would a less severe housing regime have sufficed? How did Africans strategically respond to the implementation of the compound system?
5. Although De Beers eventually came to dominate the diamond industry, it was neither inevitable nor without challenges. What types of challenges did the enterprise encounter during its ascension to the top of the industry and once it established itself there? Could some of these have been avoided? If so, how?
6. De Beers’s durable and efficacious advertisements have undoubtedly contributed to the popularity of diamonds. How might the diamond industry have fared in the absence of this sustained advertising campaign? Why?
7. De Beers has maintained operations throughout dramatically shifting geo-political contexts for well over a century. How have these changing environments affected DeBeers’s operations and how has the company strategically responded to them?
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