3/20/2023 0 Comments Black diamond rush![]() But dismantling apartheid didn’t end the country’s problems, including widespread poverty and high unemployment, which currently stands at 32.6 percent. In a nation with a large Black majority, a White minority ruled, denying Black South Africans basic rights and essentially treating them as aliens in their own land.Īpartheid officially ended in 1991, and three years later, South Africans elected a new democratic government led by Nelson Mandela, the country’s first Black president. For much of the 20th century, the nation was ruled by apartheid, a government-imposed system of strict racial segregation. South Africa has a long history of inequity. Many of the holes across the terrain are the size of graves. Until recently, sweet thorn trees and grass covered the patch of land. ![]() Cattle once fed on the digging field, which sits on land owned by the chief. The diamond rush has completely transformed KwaHlathi, where the village chief estimates that about 4,000 families live. But he admitted that he had no clue whether they were actually diamonds. Two days of digging had led to Molefe, a 41-year-old Black South African, finding four stones. No one who came seemed to care about the widespread doubt that the stones were really diamonds. The lack of jobs has reached new heights amid the pandemic. They dreamed of a turn of luck in a nation that has continued to struggle with joblessness. They arrived by taxi and by car, with many of them coming from hours away. It lured thousands of South Africans like Molefe to KwaHlathi, a sleepy village in an eastern province of South Africa where cattle roam freely. In June, a rumor spread that a herdsman had found clear stones that looked like diamonds. Then he scooped up a handful of loose soil and shook it in search of the sparkle of a gem. He took a few more forceful whacks into the edges of the shallow crater he had dug at the bottom of a hillside. ![]() The man stretched a pickax high above his head and hacked into the clumpy black dirt around his feet. Now it looks like a bare cratered moon-a treacherous terrain of holes, many of them the size of graves. Cattle once grazed on the digging field, which sits on land owned by the chief and was until recently covered with sweet thorn trees and grass. The diamond rush has completely transformed KwaHlathi, where the village chief estimates that about 4,000 families reside. If they are real diamonds, it means we are winning.” Two days of digging had yielded four stones for Molefe, a 41-year-old Black South African, who conceded that he had no clue whether they were actually diamonds. No one who came seemed the least deterred by the widespread skepticism that the stones were really diamonds. The rumor in June that a herdsman had found clear stones resembling diamonds lured thousands of South Africans like Molefe to KwaHlathi, a sleepy village in an eastern province of South Africa where cattle roam freely.Ĭoming by taxi and by car, many from hours away, they dreamed of a turn of luck in a nation whose persistent struggles with joblessness have reached new heights amid the pandemic. Sbusiso Molefe thought maybe he could strike it rich. He took a few more vigorous whacks into the edges of the shallow crater he had dug at the bottom of a hillside, before scooping up a handful of loose soil and shaking it in search of the sparkle of a gem.
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