The Missing Exhibit at the ROM/De Beers Diamond Showing

For students of marketing, diamonds represent the ultimate triumph. Take a mineral that can be found in relative abundance (despite protestations to the contrary), persuade vast numbers of people that buying one will guarantee eternal happiness or at least make them appear rich and attractive, artfully obscure the more sordid details about diamond use by rebels and despots, and you have created a perpetual money-making machine, at least for those at the top.

This is the successful recipe used by De Beers, which laid the foundations for today’s global diamond industry just over a century ago in South Africa. And it is faithfully followed in “The Nature of Diamonds”, an exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum put together by the American Museum of Natural History and sponsored by De Beers Canada.

It is understandable that De Beers wants to present the most freshly scrubbed face of the diamond industry to the world. Its corporate survival depends on perpetuating multiple myths. The Royal Ontario Museum is another matter.

While the museum’s director, William Thorsell, has described the exhibit as “extremely comprehensive”, it is anything but. Much like the Michael Lee-Chin crystal in which it is housed, the exhibit is missing important aspects, presumably left off because they spoil the overall effect. (Guttering over the main entrance to hold back drips, in the case of the crystal; a broader discussion of the part diamonds play in conflict, in the case of the exhibit.)

The myth-making begins at the very first information panel, which states that the diamond is “exotic and rare”. This used to be true. India was the only known source before the 6th century AD and remained the main global supplier until the early 1700s, when diamonds were discovered in Brazil. Such limited supply turned diamonds into coveted possessions for the Romans, the Persians, the Moguls, the Ottoman Turks, and European royalty.

Diamonds were credited with medicinal attributes—curing insanity and repelling black poisons, according to De lapidibus, a medieval treatise on gems. They were also favoured by royalty as ostentatious displays of wealth, illustrated in the exhibit with the museum’s own portrait of Marie de Medici, Queen of France from 1573 to 1642.

Yet in a different part of the exhibit, there is a chart showing how diamond production has soared in the last 50 years from less than 10 million carats at the start of the last century to an estimated 170 million carats in 2007. Since the Brazilian discoveries of the early 1700s, major production spread to South Africa (1870), Namibia (1909), the Democratic Republic of Congo (1917), Angola (1921), Russia (1960), Botswana (1970), Australia (1981), and finally Canada (which in 2007 was the third largest producer by value and the fifth by volume). It is hard to call something now mined in 27 countries and widely available “exotic and rare”.

De Beers has been adept at managing this deluge of diamonds. From the company’s inception in 1888, it attempted to control world supply. On the demand side, it worked at persuading couples that diamonds were a symbol of love. The memorable slogan “a diamond is forever” is the product of the company’s successful collaboration with N.W. Ayer, a New York advertising agency, which began in 1938. Similar tactics were used in Japan in the 1960s. China is the new frontier.

Much of this opulent history is documented in the exhibit, along with corporate efforts to link diamonds with movie stars and celebrities. Among the glittery baubles on display are chunky bracelets owned by Mae West and Joan Crawford, a dangly shoulder brooch owned by Elton John, a pair of substantial gold, silver and diamond bracelets given by “Boss” Tweed, a famously corrupt New York politician, to his daughter, and a brooch once owned by Millicent Rogers, heiress to the Standard Oil fortune.

The heftier stones and jewelry are housed in what looks like a forbidding steel vault, except that it lacks a roof. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a 407.48-carat yellow diamond called “The Incomparable”, the third largest cut diamond in the world after “The Golden Jubilee” (545.67 carats) and “Cullinan I” (530.20 carats). The text underneath the display says the diamond, which when rough was 890 carats, was found in the 1980s by a young girl playing in the rubble near a diamond mine in the Mbuji- Maya district of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was a time when Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko was routinely pilfering the state-owned diamond company and selling gems on the side to further his own ends. Did this girl exist? There is no trace of her name in authoritative accounts of the diamond industry. Indeed, some versions of the discovery say a man found the rough diamond in the 1970s. The display does not mention the conflicting dates, nor that the stone, formerly called “The Golden Giant”, was offered for sale on eBay in 2002, with no takers.

Still, this is a mere quibble compared with the most serious omission from the museum exhibit: a serious discussion of the role diamonds have played and continue to play in African conflicts. True, there is a single wall panel and display case, tucked in with information on synthetic diamonds and diamond facets, on what are popularly known as blood diamonds. These are gems used by rebels and some governments to buy weapons, feed their troops, pay bribes, and fill foreign bank accounts. Trade in such diamonds helped prolong bloody conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to name just a few, and continues to do so in Zimbabwe.

The display mainly deals with the industry’s laudable efforts to ensure that diamonds reaching the world market do not come from conflict zones. However, it does not acknowledge that these efforts were only made after a sustained campaign by activist groups such as Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada (see disclaimer below) threatened to undermine global demand. Under what is known as the Kimberley Process, certificates are issued by the governments of diamondproducing countries to accompany gems in supposedly tamper-proof bags through the chain of buyers and sellers.

While there is no doubt that this process, backed by industry, government, and activist groups, has severely curtailed the trade in blood diamonds, it is a bit of a stretch for the display panel to contend that 99 per cent of the world’s diamond supply is now conflict free. The secretive nature of the trade in conflict diamonds makes these figures difficult to track with any accuracy.

That De Beers, the exhibit sponsor, might not want to dwell on the less savoury aspects of diamonds is understandable. They have a reputation to protect. But so do the museums involved in this traveling exhibit first put together in the late 1990s. The American Museum of Natural History had the final word on what would be included, and agreed to the addition of the information on blood diamonds and measures taken to curtail the trade. The Royal Ontario Museum supplemented this with some programs outside the exhibit, such as a panel discussion on the topic one evening. Still, what visitors to the actual exhibit see is a story of diamonds that is both incomplete and sanitized. CK