Amid the global conversation on returning artworks and artefacts that were pillaged from Africa during the colonial era, South Africans are calling for Britain to return the world’s largest diamond, known as the Star of Africa.
The diamond is set in the royal sceptre that King Charles III will hold at his coronation on Saturday.
Officially known as Cullinan I, the diamond in the sceptre was cut from the Cullinan diamond, a 3,100-carat stone that was mined near Pretoria.
A smaller diamond cut from the same stone, known as Cullinan II, is set in the Imperial State Crown worn by British monarchs on ceremonial occasions. Along with the sceptre, it is kept with the other crown jewels in the Tower of London.
A replica of the whole Cullinan diamond, which is about the size of a man’s fist, is displayed at the Cape Town Diamond Museum.
The 530-carat diamond was discovered in South Africa in 1905 and presented as a gift to the British monarchy by the South African colonial government.
An online petition for the diamond to be returned to South Africa, which was started by Mothusi Kamanga, a lawyer and activist in Johannesburg, has received about 8,000 signatures.
“The diamond needs to come to South Africa. It needs to be a sign of our pride, our heritage and our culture,” Al-Jazeera quoted Kamanga as saying.
“I think generally the African people are starting to realise that to decolonise is not just to let people have certain freedoms, but it’s also to take back what has been expropriated from us.”
