Diamond Travels

I came across this photographic essay a little while ago, and it nicely demonstrates why it is that I hope to never in my life own a diamond. This includes a (hopefully) future engagement ring.

I had never really thought about the diamond industry before I took African history courses with John Laband at Laurier – one a survey course and one dedicated to war and society in Africa. The later was especially interesting, as Laband lectured on civil wars and the thing that often financed them: the diamond industry. His lectures, and one of the books he assigned helped to formulate my negative opinion regarding diamonds.
A small excerpt from the book Into Africa: (de Villiers is instructed to remove his shoes and rub hi foot back and forth in the dirt, and then to lift up his foot)
“As I did so, one of the workers wandered over, and began whisking at my feet. I thought this was a bit much, but stood still as instructed. He brushed away, exposing the sand and gravel I had felt. But then he muttered something, and picked up a small pebble. He spat in his hand, rubbed the pebble back and forth. I stared. It was a muddy yellow colour. It looked like dirty glass.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Clipboard said. ‘A diamond. Not a very good one, but a good size. Decent stone.’
…
The ‘lockbox boy’ wandered over. He was carrying the lockbox itself, a small metal box the size and shape of a bank safety-deposit box. It was padlocked twice, and bound to his wrist with a steel-reinforced cord. On the upper surface were a series of graduated holes. He pushed my diamond through the appropriate hold and made a notation on a pad. The diamond wasn’t ‘mine,’ not by a long shot. It belonged to the operating company, CDM, a part of De Beers of South Africa, and there were plenty of stories about how rigorously they were prepared to make sure no one walked off with their property – even to giving the miners X-rays and a very thorough enema before they left the diamond fields to go home. De Beers doesn’t have a huge sense of humour about its role in the scheme of things.”*

This passage is certainly ‘mild’ compared to some of the other passages found throughout the book (though many of them are not necessarily diamond related). Despite the ‘mildness’ of it though, the idea that miners are given regular X-rays and enemas is surely not good for their health. Consider what happens when you go to the dentist – a heavy lead shield is placed on your upper body to prevent unnecessary exposure, and yet these miners surely receive weekly, if not daily, X-rays, not to mention the various cavity searches.

The movie Blood Diamond also clearly demonstrates what occurs in the diamond industry – and illustrated quite accurately the information provided by Professor Laband. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, I highly recommend taking a look. It’s graphic, often disgusting, highly disturbing, but incredibly well done. I hesitate to call it a good movie, but it does quite accurately demonstrate the diamond industry, child soldier armies, civil wars, and the West’s indifference/ignorance in relation to it all. Hollywood also did well with Lord of War, which examines the arms trade in numerous areas and focuses mostly on Africa. This movie shows the flow of arms out of the former Soviet Union into Africa, and the flow of diamonds out of Africa and into the West. Both movies are well done and helped to reaffirm my non-desire to own a diamond, as they illustrated the atrocities that occur for this precious stone in ways that my imagination simply never could.




* Marq de Villiers and Sheila Hirtle, Into Africa: A Journey through the Ancient Empires (Toronto: Key Porters Books Limited, 1999), 140.