Apartheid South Africa thought they could break off from Britain and the whole world because of the wealth created by diamonds. How well though did they really control it? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The aesthetics of the stamp tell a powerful story with a simple rendering of a diamond. There is a version of the stamp with the country name in English so as not to crowd out the image with superfluous text as with some bilingual Canadian stamps. This stamp recognized the 5th anniversary of the formal declaring of a white republic and the end of British Commonwealth and Dominion status. The issue included a view of Table Mountain, to show beauty, corn to show self sufficiency, a flying bird to show the freedoms enjoyed by the white minority, but the most interesting one to me is the majestic view given to the diamond. To have the view that rule by a small minority was sustainable, what better than show a source of unending wealth. How well though was the diamond resource controlled? Perhaps less directly than the stamp implies.
Todays stamp is issue A126 a one cent stamp issued by the Republic of South Africa on May 31st, 1966. It was part 8 stamp issue in vaious denominations celebrating the 5th anniversary of the unilateral declaration of republic status. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.
Diamonds were first mined in South Africa in the colonial period after being discovered by Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was a homosexual and therefore lacked heirs who could run the operation after his death. Into the void came a mining engineer named Oppenheimer that had emigrated from Germany and invested in the De Beers operation. He converted to Anglican and started the Anglo- American mining that merged with de Beers. By then the de Beers operation controlled 90 percent of the worlds diamond mining. In addition to Southern African production, they bought the output of other producers and routed the output through a system of diamond cutters in Israel. The spread out structure of the operation allowed de Beers to get around sanctions. To the Israelis it was a Jewish concern, opposed to Apartheid and employing many blacks. To London operations, the diamonds were coming from Israel. De Beers was 10 percent of the GNP of South Africa and 40 percent of the exports. All the middlemen meant that South Africa was not getting as rich as it might have had the operation been more purely South African. Yet that would have subject to the sanctions that fell on South Africa after breaking the ties to Britain.
In the 1950s, the British saw the writing on the wall and were preparing to turn over the African colonies to local African leaders. To a place like South Africa, with a relatively large number of white residents this was threatening as they did not see black rule as realistic. Unilaterally, South Africa ended Dominion status and declared itself an independent Republic. Only whites voted on this and the measure only carried 52-48. Over time, ever greater international sanctions fell on South Africa in order to pressure them to face the inevitable. South Africa however was by far the richest country in Africa and even their repressed black residents enjoyed a much higher standard of living than black run former colonies to the north. This attracted ever more black Africans to move to South Africa while there was a steady stream of whites out. Eventually a deal was struck and white rule ended.
Ever resourceful de Beers goes on. It had always maintained an official position against white rule and has been generous with new black governments in the area. A new trick is the blood diamond. de Beers announced in 1999 that no diamonds would be sourced from countries in Africa with long running civil wars. This helped delegitimize alternate to de Beers sources of diamonds. The diamonds were supporting long running civil wars in places like Sierra Leonne and Angola but it does seem to be throwing rocks from a glass house.
Well my drink is empty and I am left staring at the majestic diamond on todays stamp. The decision to break with Britain and try to continue alone could not have been easy. They must have been heavily counted on wealth from de Beers, so much of which was syphoned off. The original blood diamond? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.