GHALEB CACHALIA: Whether De Beers or politics, the world needs heretics

How the world has changed. I used to be a senior executive at De Beers in its halcyon days when diamond sales were on the up and up, fuelled by snappy television adverts and the endorsements of celebrities sporting jewels about their cleavages, ears and fingers. 

Now we’re told Anglo American has sharply reduced its expected annual diamond production figure (“Anglo lowers its 2024 diamond output guidance”, April 23). In the “good old days”, which predated me, De Beers was able to use its stockpile to manipulate the market. 

All that direct control has long since ended, and in the absence of a savvy appeal to a youthful population of putative consumers with changing views and values, the “production guidance” is destined to continue its downward trajectory.

The growth of synthetics, the price appeal of lookalikes and the changing mores of new generations who know the difference between the store of value of diamonds, gold and bitcoin — let alone the diminishing desire to mark their changing marital allegiances with a diamond — heralds big changes for the industry. 

It is not only the diamond industry that has changed and is now crying out for a new slogan to replace the 100-year-old one that proclaimed diamonds are forever. Global politics is changing; local politics is morphing into new realities. At the heart of what drives and influences these changes are the youth, globally and locally, who are girding their loins as the landscape unfolds. 

When the youth reacts to the changes — when they foment these changes — behaviour will change. Purchasing behaviour, voting proclivities, structural changes and more will define the new order. For now they are absorbing it all and it doesn’t appear to sit well; they’re restless, if not more than hesitantly active.

But move they will, as they are beginning to do over Gaza and Israel at universities globally. Another Vietnam moment is in the making, and the pity is that the powers that be can’t or won’t see it, as they failed to see it before. 

Wake up

So take heart, it is not just the plethora of parties here and worldwide in this mother of all election years that are missing the point as they post on poles stamp-sized messages that simply say “Trust me, I’m a doctor” and not much else; there’s a thing coming.

The hidebound scrabblers for power, mired in an order of the old, need to understand that diamonds are not forever. You can’t spin a lie in perpetuity. There comes a time when folk wake up and change gear while you “lower your diamond production guidance”. No-one has ever shrunk to grow, particularly when the levers of manipulation have withered. 

When the sparkle goes, it’s back to the fundamentals and new forays into the future. As a long-term investor I wouldn’t buy De Beers even if I could. Like the current political plays, it’s yesterday’s story — witness BHP’s lowball offer for Anglo. 

Likewise, real statesmen read the future. If all they did was react to the present they would join the sorry bunch at the helm of politics worldwide. What they need are mavericks in their midst. 

It’s a great pity that the political leaders of the day — here and elsewhere — are unable to embrace mavericks within their ranks. These are the people who challenge the status quo, who rock the boat. They are the lifeblood of the system.

The recently deceased Lord Frank Field of Birkenhead was one such person; a principled maverick and free thinker of the sort political parties sorely need. As former British prime minister Tony Blair said: “He was an independent thinker, never constrained by conventional wisdom, but always pushing at the frontier of new ideas... Even when we disagreed, I had the utmost respect for him as a colleague and a character.” 

It is a great shame that our political systems don’t cultivate more of the likes of Field.

• Cachalia is a former DA MP and public enterprises spokesperson.