Digging for Diamonds, Wielding New Words: A Linguistic Perspective on Zimbabwe's ‘Blood Diamonds’

Abstract

The history of diamond mining in Africa is long, complex and heterogeneous. In post-colonial Zimbabwe, before 2006, two diamond mines operated, at River Ranch in Beitbridge and at Murowa in Zvishavane, which both had Kimberley Process Certification. However, the 2006 discovery of diamonds at Chiadzwa in Marange, near Mutare, brought about a dramatic change to Zimbabwe's mining landscape. Propelled by Zimbabwe's deepening economic crisis, soon after this discovery of diamonds was made public, the Chiadzwa diamond fields were invaded by an avalanche of illegal diamond miners from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. Chiadzwa became a dynamic site of struggle where new cultural and social identities, languages and consumption patterns emerged in a remarkably short space of time. This study delineates and explicates the new linguistic terms and expressions that rapidly developed among this new, transient community of illegal diamond panners at Chiadzwa, in order to describe their activities, experiences and interactions. The study focuses on the period 2006 to 2008 when the Zimbabwean crisis was at its worst, and the diamond rush was at its peak. Its aim is to analyse the linguistic strategies involved in these illegal miners' emergent ‘language’, and its socio-economic and political functions in the milieu of Chiadzwa. The article shows that as the illegal diamond miners at Chiadzwa were ‘digging for diamonds’ they were also, ‘wielding new words’, suggesting these phenomena are explicable through notions of ‘antilanguages’ and ‘antistructure’. By triangulating a phenomenological approach with interviews and observations, the study explores how Chiadzwa became a highly contested but hugely creative space in which a rich new ‘vocabulary’ was forged, that reflected the vagaries and complexities of life in the midst of a diamond rush, even as Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis worsened deeply around it.

Notes

¹ The informal interviews conducted for this study indicate that some people believe that the presence of diamonds at Chiadzwa was originally discovered during the colonial era and that they had been exploited clandestinely since that time. The Geological Map of Zimbabwe (7^th edition, 1994) shows the existence of intrusive igneous rocks with kimberlite (diamond) noted as available in the Zambezi Valley and the Midlands area. Its ‘reliability diagram’ shows that Chiadzwa falls under ‘mapped areas’ and ‘from best information available’ that lie between 32 and 33 degrees (Eastings) and 19 and 20 degrees (Northings). In his speech to the World Diamond Council in July 2010, Zimbabwe's Minister of Mines, Obert Mpofu, referred to several periods of country-wide exploration and prospecting for diamonds by companies like De Beers, that had taken place at different times during the twentieth century, before and after independence. Despite these efforts the mines at River Ranch and Marowa were only established in the 1990s and early 2000s (See ‘Speech By The Honourable Minister of Mines And Mining Development, Obert Moses Mpofu, At The World Diamond Council, 7^th Annual Meeting Held in St Petersberg, Russia on 15 July 2010’, available at http://www.worlddiamondcouncil.org/download/7wdc/WDC%202010%20-%20Obert%20Moses%20Mpofu%20(July%202010).pdf, retrieved on 4 November 2011). It is now known that De Beers had originally identified the presence of diamonds at Marange/Chiadzwa, during prospecting in the area in 2003, but did not inform the government until 2006, when, for still unclear reasons, they abandoned their claim, perhaps because, as Mpofu suggested in his speech, they had indeed ‘concluded that the exceptionally poor quality of the diamonds they had recovered, together with the limited extent of the conglomerate made this diamond occurrence of no interest to them’. Even as they gave up their claim in July 2006, the ‘rush’ had already begun, and various government-linked companies were granted special titles to prospect and to market the diamonds being illegally mined by artisanal miners flocking to the area. As Nyamunda and Mukwambo discuss in greater detail in their contribution to this issue of JSAS (‘The State and the Bloody Diamond Rush at Chiadzwa: Unpacking the Contested Interests in the Development of Illicit Mining and Trading, c. 2006–2009’), since 2006, various efforts were made by government to regain control over the diamond fields, which culminated in the deaths of hundreds of people by security forces reclaiming control over the area in late 2008 (Human Rights Watch Report, Diamonds in the Rough Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe (Human Rights Watch, New York, June 2009), available at http://www.observatori.org/paises/pais_82/documentos/zimbabwe0609web.pdf, retrieved on 4 November 2011). Since then the ‘unity government’ has struggled to establish Kimberley certification for the Chiadzwa diamonds, to enable them to be sold on the open market, and for it to regain control over the considerable profits made. Suspicions have circulated that many involved in the illegal trade prefer to keep their operations beyond state regulation, but in early November 2011, Kimberley certification was finally granted (see, for example, ‘Zim Cleared to Sell Marange Diamonds Despite Ongoing Abuses’, 2 November 2011 and ‘Diamond CSOs Slam Zim Deal for Ignoring Human Rights’, 3 November 2011 available at http://www.swradioafrica.com/2011/11/03/diamond-csos-slam-zim-deal-for-ignoring-human-rights/, retrieved on 4 November 2011).

² M.A.K. Halliday, Languages as Social Semiotics (London, Edward Arnold, 1978), p. 164ff.

³ V. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago, Aldine, 1969).

⁴ See, for example, B. Latham and F. Katerere, ‘Diamond Smuggling Thrives in Zimbabwe’, The Zimbabwe Situation, 14 January 2011, available at http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/jan14_2011.html, retrieved on 2 July 2011; The Zimbabwe Situation, ‘Diamond Rush Grips Chipinge’, 31 January 2010, available at http://www.zimbabwesituation.org/?p = 7472, retrieved on 1 July 2011; AllAboutGemstones.com, ‘Conflict and Blood Diamonds: Zimbabwe’, available at http://www.allaboutgemstones.com/conflict-diamonds-zimbabwe.html, retrieved on 1 July 2011.

⁵ See, for example, a poster on ‘Measure of Inflation’ distributed by New ZANJ Publishing House, 2009. The figures used were respectively sourced from Central Statistical Office (May 2008), Government of Zimbabwe (November 2008), Prof. Steve Hanke (14 November 2008). For a detailed analysis of the Zimbabwe crisis, see also, B. Raftopoulos, ‘The Crisis in Zimbabwe, 1998–2008’, in B. Raftopoulos and A. Mlambo (eds), Becoming Zimbabwe: A History from the Pre-colonial Period to 2008 (Harare, Weaver Press, 2009), pp. 201–32.

⁶ ‘Zim Unemployment Skyrockets’, Mail & Guardian, 30 January 2009, available at http://mg.co.za/article/2009-01-29-zim-unemployment-skyrockets, retrieved on 21 March 2011.

⁷ L.M. Sachikonye, The Social Impact of Diamonds Extraction in Chiadzwa, Marange (Johannesburg, Southern Africa Resource Watch, 2009), available at http://www.sarwatch.org/sawadoc/theStoryArtislMiningMarange OCT26 Final.pdf, retrieved on 2 February 2011; Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), ‘Diamonds and Human Security’ (Annual Review, 2009), available at http://www.pacweb.org/Documents/annual-review-diamonds/AR_diamonds_2009_eng.pdf, retrieved on 2 February 2011.

⁸ See Nyamunda and Mukwambo, this issue of JSAS. See also T. Vircoulon, ‘Time to Rethink the Kimberley Process: The Zimbabwe Case’, On the African Peacebuilding Agenda (4 November 2010), available at www.bit.gs/…/time-to-rethink-the-kimberley-process-the-zimbabwe, retrieved on 2 February 2011); Partnership Africa Canada, ‘Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History’, available at http://www.pacweb.org/Documents/diamonds_KP/18_Zimbabwe-Diamonds_March09-Eng.pdf, retrieved on 7 July 2011; R. Saunders, ‘Briefing Note – Conflict Diamonds from Zimbabwe’ (2009), available at http://www.bicc.de/fataltransactions/pdf/briefing_note_conflict_diamonds_from_zimbabwe.pdf, retrieved on 15 January 2011.

⁹ N. Hordern, ‘Diamond Rings on your Fingers or Blood on your Hands?’, New African, 462 (London, IC Publications, May 2007), p. 136. See also, L. Gberie, ‘When Spinning Stops’, New African, 462 (London, IC Publications, May 2007), p. 140; and A. Hoyt, ‘How the African Diamond Trade Works’, available at http://history.howstuffworks.com/african-history/african-diamond-trade2.htm, retrieved on 4 July 2011. However, in the Zimbabwean context there is no problem of civil wars. The suitability of the label would be in line with the death of unarmed illegal diamond panners who were allegedly shot sporadically by the army and police safe-guarding the Chiadzwa fields. Because of this problem, each state has to pass the Kimberley Licence Protocol before its diamonds can be accepted on the official market.

¹⁰ Vircoulon, ‘Time to Rethink the Kimberley Process’; Saunders, ‘Briefing Note – Conflict Diamonds from Zimbabwe’.

¹¹ See ‘Zim Cleared to Sell Marange Diamonds Despite Ongoing Abuses’, 2 November 2011 and ‘Diamond CSOs Slam Zim Deal for Ignoring Human Rights’, 3 November 2011, available at http://www.swradioafrica.com/2011/11/03/diamond-csos-slam-zim-deal-for-ignoring-human-rights/, retrieved on 4 November 2011).

¹² P. Curtin, S. Feierman, L. Thompson and J. Vansina, African History: From Earliest Times to Independence (2^nd edition, London, Longman, 1995), p. 448; See also, M.C. Van Zyl, ‘State and Colonies in South Africa, 1854–1902’, in C.F.J. Muller (ed.), Five Hundred Years: A History of South Africa (Third edition, Pretoria, H&R Academica, 1981).

¹³ Van Zyl, ‘State and Colonies in South Africa, 1854–1902’, p. 304.

¹⁴ Van Zyl, ‘State and Colonies in South Africa, 1854–1902’, p. 305.

¹⁵ Van Zyl, ‘State and Colonies in South Africa, 1854–1902’, p. 449. It is interesting to note that in one instance in 1992, European miners, who were permitted, unlike African workers, to take industrial action and to form labour unions, went on strike. The strike turned violent and the government called in the army to suppress it, claiming 230 lives. Although the victims, in this case, were white miners, this ‘bloody’ encounter is illustrative of the social struggles that can surround the establishment of ‘legal’ mining industries, and therefore substantiates our point here that the South African experience is as relevant to the Zimbabwe case, as comparison with the more recent diamond-fuelled conflicts elsewhere on the continent.

¹⁶ HRW, Diamonds in the Rough; Partnership Africa Canada, ‘Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History’, Occasional Paper # 18 (March 2009), available at http://www.pacweb.org/Documents/diamonds_KP/18_zimbabwe-Diamonds-March09-Eng.pdf, retrieved on 10 July 2011.

¹⁷ See, for example, R. Mate, ‘Youth Lyrics, Street Language and the Politics of Age: Contextualising the Youth Question in the Third Chimurenga in Zimbabwe’, JSAS, 38, 1 (March 2012), this issue.

¹⁸ See J.L. Jones, ‘Nothing is Straight in Zimbabwe: The Rise of the Kukiya-kiya Economy 2000–2008’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 36, 2 (2010); M. Kadenga and G. Mavunga, ‘Linguistic Innovation During a National Crisis: An Analysis of Selected Shona Metaphors Created During the Zimbabwe Crisis’, South African Journal of African Languages, 2 (2010).

¹⁹ ‘Murowa Gem Production Rises 88pc’, The Sunday Mail (24–30 July 2011).

²⁰ See: M.A.K. Halliday, Languages as Social Semiotics (London, Edward Arnold, 1978), Chapter 9, pp. 164–82); See also, F. Veit Wild, ‘“Zimbolicious” The Creative Potential of Linguistic Innovation: The Case of Shona-English in Zimbabwe’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 3 (2009); R. Kiessling and M. Mous, ‘Urban Youth Languages in Africa’, Anthropological Linguistics, 46, 3 (2004).

²¹ Halliday, Languages as Social Semiotics.

²² R. Hodge and G. Kress, ‘Social Semiotics, Style, and Ideology’, in N. Coupland and A. Jaworski (eds), Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook (London, Macmillan, 1997).

²³ Halliday, Languages as Social Semiotics, p. 165.

²⁴ Halliday, Languages as Social Semiotics, p. 166.

²⁵ J.L. Cox, Expressing the Sacred: An Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion (Harare, University of Zimbabwe Publications, 1996), p. 19; T. Groenewald, ‘A Phenomenological Research Design Illustrated’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3, 1 (April 2004), available at http://www.ualberta.ca/ ∼ iiqm/backissues/3_1/pdf.groenewald.pdf, retrieved on 12 January 2010; D. Allen, ‘Phenomenology of Religion’, in M. Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Religion, Volume 13 (New York, Macmillan, 1987).

²⁶ Cox, Expressing the Sacred, pp. 27 & 31.

²⁷ C. Geertz, ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’, in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, Basic Books, 1973), pp. 3–30.

²⁸ R. Kiessling and M. Mous, ‘Urban Youth Languages in Africa’, Anthropological Linguistics, 46, 3 (2004), p. 314.

²⁹ Such clashes between the two factions can be metaphorically understood as the interlocking of horns.

³⁰ G.N. Leech, Semantics (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1981); A. Mwihaki, ‘Meaning as Use: A Functional View of Semantics and Pragmatics’, Swahili, 11 (2004), p. 134.

³¹ Pan-African News Wire, ‘Newman Chiadzwa Sets the Record Straight on Zimbabwe Diamonds’ (29 November 2009), available at http://panafricanmews.blogspot.com/2009/11newman-chiadzwa-sets-record-straight-on.html, retrieved on 20 July 2011.

³² S. Chimbetu, ‘Newspaper’, on the Album 2000 Blend (Harare, Gramma Records, 2000).

³³ See, for example, M.R. Cutrufelli, Women of Africa: Roots of Oppression (London, Zed Books, 1983), Chapter 2, pp. 41–86.

³⁴ G. Fortune, Shona Grammatical Constructions, Volume 1 (Harare, Mercury Press, 1985); P. Mashiri and C. Warinda, Dudzira Mutauro ReChiShona ‘A’ Level (Gweru, Mambo Press, 1999).

³⁵ C. Msengezi, ‘Ndonanzva Banga’, in C. Chirikure (ed.), Tipei Dariro (Harare, College Press, 1994); F. Sibanda, T. Makahamadze and R.S. Maposa, ‘“Hawks and Doves”: The Impact of Operation Murambatsvina on Johane Marange Apostolic Church in Zimbabwe’, Exchange, 37, 1 (2008); E. Chitando, Living with Hope: African Churches and HIV/AIDS 1 (Geneva, WCC Publications, 2007); F. Sibanda, HIV and AIDS-Related Stigma and Discrimination: A Philosophical Reflection on the Experiences of Students at Great Zimbabwe University (Saarbrücken, Lambert Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG, 2010).

³⁶ O. Katsaura, ‘Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Informal Diamond Mining in Chiadzwa, Zimbabwe’, Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa,12, 6 (2010); L.M. Sachikonye, The Social Impact of Diamonds Extraction in Chiadzwa, Marange (Johannesburg, Southern Africa Resource Watch, 2009), available at http://www.sarwatch.org/sawadoc/theStoryArtislMiningMarange OCT26 Final.pdf, retrieved on 20 June 2011; R. Saunders, ‘Briefing Note – Conflict Diamonds from Zimbabwe’, (2009), available at http://www.bicc.de/fataltransactions/pdf/briefing_note_conflict_diamonds_from_zimbabwe.pdf, retrieved on15 January 2011.

³⁷ P. Henry, ‘Rastafarianism and the Reality of Dread’, in L.R. Gordon (ed.), Existence in Black (London, Routledge, 1997).

³⁸ V. Pollard, ‘Sound and Power: The Language of the Rastafari’, in S. Makoni, G. Smitherman, A.F. Ball and A.K. Spears, (eds), Black Linguistics: Language, Society and Politics in Africa and the Americas (London, Routledge, 2003).

³⁹ R.E. Hood, Must God Remain Greek?: Afro Cultures and God-Talk (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1990), p. 92; See, for example, N.S. Murrell, W.D. Spencer and A.A. Mcfarlane (eds), Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader (Kingston, IRP, 1998), p. 32.

⁴⁰ M. Castellas, The Power of Identity (Malden, Mass., Blackwell, 1997), cited in R. Kiessling and M. Mous, ‘Urban Youth Languages in Africa’, Anthropological Linguistics, 46, 3 (2004), p. 313.

⁴¹ Turner, The Ritual Process.

⁴² Potatoskins, ‘Antistructure in Tahrir’, 10 February 2011, available at http://connectedincairo.com/2011/02/10/antistructure-in-tahrir/, retrieved on 5 May 2011.

⁴³ V.W. Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 100.

⁴⁴ M. Deflem, ‘Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner's Processual Symbolic Analysis’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 3, 1 (1991), pp. 1–25.

⁴⁵ Turner, The Ritual Process, p. 132; See also, Deflem, ‘Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner's Processual Symbolic Analysis’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30, 1 (1991), p. 12.

⁴⁶ Partnership Africa Canada, ‘Zimbabwe, Diamonds and the Wrong Side of History: The Diamonds and Human Security Project’, Occasional Paper # 18 (March 2009), available at http://www.pacweb.org/Documents/diamonds_KP/18_zimbabwe-Diamonds-March09-Eng.pdf, retrieved on 10 July 2011.

⁴⁷ See, for example, A. Kori, Makorokoza: Small-Scale Gold Mining in the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe (Gweru, Mambo Press, 2006).

⁴⁸ Such mocking, derogatory statements could cause clashes particularly when they were applied to both men and women. Often such words were typically directed at more ‘timid’ magweja, illustrating something of the bravado that was common to encounters between magweja groups.

⁴⁹ O. Katsaura, ‘Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Informal Diamond Mining in Chiadzwa, Zimbabwe’, Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa, 12, 6 (2010), available at http//:www.jsd-africa.com/Jsda/V12No6_Fall2010-B/PDF, retrieved on 20 June 2011. We also gathered this from informants who asserted that the place paid most but was also the most heavily guarded.

⁵⁰ This label is derived from the Shona word ‘kupusa’ which means being unwise. The same name tag was used to refer to a church organisation where male adherents sexually abused women folk with impunity.

⁵¹ Some magweja believed that the diamonds were like the biblical ‘manna’ that Moses used to feed the wandering Israelites, illustrating how Christian discourses and themes were appropriated alongside and intertwined with ancestral and other ‘traditional’ religious themes in gweja diction and life.

⁵² H. Chipanga, ‘Zamu rambuya Nehanda rasisa Ngoda’ in the Album Pharaoh (Harare, Gramma Records, 2006). This album by Hosiah Chipanga was banned in Zimbabwe during the crisis because of its connotative meaning that compared the ruling élite in Zimbabwe during the Chiadzwa turmoil to the biblical pharaoh who subjected the Israelites to bondage.

⁵³ S. Kadungure, ‘Illegal Diamond Dealers Invade Marange’, The Manica Post (20–26 October 2006), p.1.

⁵⁴ This is a Shona derivation from English word ‘glass’. In gweja tradition it means clear diamonds which are highly prized as compared to ‘ngoda’ which are rough diamonds.