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| The open pit at the Premier mine when I re visited in 2004 - over a kilometer across! |
The other day Stuey was reading a science book and asking me questions about the Periodic Table. I was casually answering his questions. 'What is Helium?' etc. And then he asked me about diamonds, and it brought a smile to my face because I know diamonds. I once worked at a diamond mine in South Africa (
click here for old post about my time there) - coincidentally at the mine home to the largest diamond ever found.
Stuey asked how much would a diamond 'as big as my head be worth'. I tried to explain that the value of diamonds varies according to the 4 C's - cut, color, carats, and clarity. But that a diamond as 'big as your head' has never been found. The largest one ever found weighed just over a pound (3100 carats - 1 1/3 pounds) and was about the size of a closed fist. That was the Cullinan Diamond and was found in 1905 at the mine where I later worked - The Premier Mine in Cullinan, South Africa.
Anyway, the discussion piqued my interest to go back into the archives and look at old photos of the mine. And at some other photos I found on the internet after a google search. I gather it is now a big
tourist attraction and that there are guided tours.
I even found a quaint picture from today of the offices where I once worked
at as a personnel trainee. I remember entering those offices during
a strike and having to push through all the NUM (National Union of Mines)
workers outside who were on strike, and waving their fighting sticks. My black co-workers did not have
to go to work on those days because getting through the crowd would have
been dangerous for them. But they did have to go to work in some
capacity because as 'senior' staff they were not in the mine workers union; whereas, the black
unionized mine workers could legally strike.
History tends to forget that Apartheid South Africa did have fairly liberal labor laws that dated back to the early part of the 20th century. To before 1948 when the National Party took power and established Apartheid. Prior to 1948 South Africa was a relatively progressive and liberal place. Coincidentally 1948 is also the year that marks the establishment of Israel. There is a certain irony and parallel there that I will not get into - but just think 'homelands' and 'pass laws'. In any case, I believe that the history of negotiation between the labor unions and the government had a great deal to with the largely negotiated and fairly peaceful transition from white rule to a democracy.
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| My office (at one point) was in one of these buildings - I later worked out of the hostel |
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| Aerial view of the big pit - the mine extends twice as far under the bottom of the pit! |
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| The Chris Hani beer garden at the hostel where I used to work as seen during my visit in 2004. I used to help brew 'Mealie-meal beer' or Mahewu for this place back in 1989. It is a very low alcohol fermented product that is white in color (as I remember it). |
Anyway looking through the pictures, I focused on one from my return visit to the workers hostel in 2004. It is of the old beer garden where the workers went to relax. I remember helping management to brew the beer and even grinding up the meat and mixing it with mustard and spices to make the boerwurst served in the establishment. In the photo I noted that it is now the 'Chris Hani Beer Garden'. The name struck a chord, but I could not place the context. So I looked him up on the internet and it all came back.
He was a big figure in
Umkhonto we Sizwe the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) that fought to end Apartheid. He was almost as popular as Nelson Mandela and was assassinated at his home by a foreign white extremist in 1993. This was at the time when F. W. de Klerk and the National Party (NP) in power was negotiating with Nelson Mandela and the ANC to end apartheid.
At the time I was taking a break from graduate school and visiting my friends in South Africa after a 3 year hiatus away from my old job at the diamond mine. I was driving from Capetown to Johannesburg when Chris Hani was assassinated and remember that all hell broke loose. Angry protesters were dropping bricks from highway overpasses onto the cars passing below. The townships were on fire.
I got back to my friends' house outside Johannesburg and we all hunkered down and did not leave the apartment for a couple of days. No one went to work and we listened to what was happening on the radio. I seem to remember that they closed down the highways to the international airport - then named after Jan Smuts. There was a very real fear that the whole negotiation process would break down and that South Africa would erupt in a violent insurrection. It was scary.
And then Nelson Mandela came on the radio and calmed the waters.
Tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and
white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice
and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our
whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of
Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to
justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent
shock waves throughout the country and the world. ... Now is the time
for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any
quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom
of all of us.
The event galvanized the transition negotiations and just over a year later South Africa held the elections that ended Apartheid. Patrick
