'Shine on you crazy diamond' :: Mmegi Online

By turning a resource of nature, diamonds, into its significant sole lifeline; and by relying on diamonds, over and over, and several decades after they were first discovered, mined, valued and sold, Botswana has created a relationship with them, that has gained power over the country to this day.

Now everybody calls the discovery and revenue of diamonds, a beneficial image of a country others had literally given up on, while the country’s citizens perceive them as an account of beneficence, constant and reliable, and looking out for them when everybody else looked away.

In the late 1960s up to the mid-1970s, Pink Floyd (the UK psychedelic rock bank) was a lot like Botswana – it was bereft of artistic leadership, having lost its cofounder, Syd Barrett, to illness, while Botswana was poor in material terms as it lacked capital.

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