Stories and News No. 1315
Once upon a time a proverb, all that glitters is not gold, which urges us to be wary of what at first glance may seem appreciable and of undisputed value, but if its actual qualities and characteristics are ascertained, it proves much less agreeable and meritorious.
I cite as an emblematic example the coronation ceremony of the new sovereign of the isolated, rather than united, Kingdom, celebrated moreover with a concert that stood out for the number of absent artists than for the few who performed.
Yet, as per tradition, at every public event involving the royals of England there is an exorbitant amount of clamor and above all glare. I could say high beam, it would be very redundant, but it is the real gist of the speech.
Because in the era of information that can be obtained anywhere, by any means, from any point of the world, both on the eve and after the advent of the renewed British monarchy, what is unworthy lurks in the dark corners - or better to say obscured - of the complete family album, sooner or later it comes to light, to stay on topic.
On the other hand, it is exactly for this reason that I am even more intrigued by the more grotesque and paradoxical details that lie undisturbed for all to see.
In other words, all that glitters is not gold, despite the well-known motto should be reiterated with a double meaning on this occasion, since we are not talking about gold at all, but diamonds.
Indeed I am talking about the diamond par excellence, the Cullinan I, known as the Great Star of Africa, which with its approximately 530 carats is the largest clean cut diamond in the world, obtained from the original Cullinan, in turn the largest rough diamond ever found on earth, to be precise in South Africa.
Words matter especially when what you have before your eyes does not give credit to the life that preceded us. Because they often say it all even though they don't want to, or they make use of euphemisms that need to be corrected.
When I read "Great Star of Africa", that preposition truncated by the apostrophe reminds me and reminds us that the diamond was originally African, and that when we often say "found", we should translate as "stolen".
Yet, witnessing the umpteenth coronation of a symbol of our continent, although currently in a nation that has distanced itself from the latter, the splendor is immense and if you don't repair your mind, more than your eyes, you miss out on the best. Or the worst for those who boast of the latter.
The story with the initial humiliated of a theft perpetrated over time without courts and much less guilty, but with a list of illustrious men rewarded by noble history.
I am referring, among others, to Thomas Cullinan, the owner of the mine in whose honor the diamond was named, the South African prime minister at the time, Louis Botha and the man who the latter gave the jewel to, namely Edward VII, King of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, of the British Dominions and Emperor of India.
In short, three persons guilty in different but effective ways of the crime against humanity called colonialism. And the proof of how much it is still blatantly unpunished, far from it, is that on the occasion of the aforementioned coronation the infamous diamond invisibly soiled with innocent blood was once again, in plain sight, set on the tip of the scepter in the hands of the new king...