Do You Know That Gold Is Only Created Through The Death Of Stars In The Universe?

Gold is one of the rarest metals on Planet Earth.

That's because the process by which it is created is very uncommon in the Universe itself.

You have probably heard of a SUPERNOVA – a cosmic body that is created by the collision of two or more gargantuan stars ( some more humongous than our own SUN) in the Universe. (There are said to be more stars of a nature similar to our SUN in the universe, than there are sands on all the beaches in the world!)

Now, the amount of “energy” released by the creation of a supernova is so enormous that its gravitational force swallows other bodies, all of which then fuse together to become even greater bodies (in mass). The supernovas thus become KILONOVAS. From these unimaginably gargantuan bodies are formed other incredible fusions of forces that are called BLACKHOLES.

Now, nothing that falls into a Black hole can ever escape. Physicists suspect that the very laws of physics, as known today, actually break down, at some point, inside a black hole! Another Einstein is awaited, to come and unravel it all.

What is speculated upon, today, is a phenomenon called a “singularity” that comes into play when black holes are considered; and I am sorry but that is Nobel Prize for Physics territory that I dare not enter!)

All I can grasp is that during the process in which stars like our SUN run out of fuel and die, to collide and explode into supernovas and kilonovas, they eject from their exploding cores, elements that form debris scattered across the universe. Some contain a power and density that is almost beyond calculation and suck up everything that is near their orbit.

Can you imagine a body a teaspoonful of which can weigh 10m. tons? I told you this is creepy stuff! For where would anyone get a teaspoon strong enough to weight such stuff in the first place? But clever physicists can use mathematical principles to arrive at such theories.

As stated above, the debris from an exploded dying star catches clouds of dust in its orbit; usually, the dust-clouds, are themselves in the process of coalescing into new “planets”.

During its formation, Planet Earth suffered – some with a wicked sense of humour might say “enjoyed”! – a “shower” of such supernova- ejected material during its formation (in orbit around our star, the SUN) billions of years ago. Among the elements contained in that “shower” was -- GOLD!

Now, the attraction that gold possesses over humankind is so elemental and almost mystical that I daresay it's probably “cosmic” in nature! Well, one would say that if one were superstitious.

Anyway, the best illustration of the power of Gold's ineluctable “pull” on men can be found in the story of King Midas.

This was a monarch who fell so much in love with gold that he asked for – and was given – magical powers that enabled him to turn everything he touched into – gold.

King Midas, eventually, could get no food to eat or water/wine to drink because – everything he touched DID literally turn into gold!

Thus, the “RICHEST” man in the world died of STARVATION – an end usually reserved for the POOREST of humans!

It's as if the Midas story was written for us in Ghana. We, in particular, have to be mindful of this allegorical tale, for we once placed ourselves in a position not too far removed from that of King Midas. We produced so much gold that FOREIGNERS heard of it and travelled thousands of miles by ship to come here and “buy” it from us.

They got so much gold from us that they used hyperbole to describe our country – they called it “THE GOLD COAST”! (In fact, the gold was not on the coast at all, but in the deep interior of the country!)

When the foreigners could no longer get gold in the quantities that would sate their “Midas-type appetite”, they turned on OUR PEOPLE and began to catch them to use as “merchandise” in lands that they had conquered elsewhere!

Worse, they enticed some of our rulers, who should have organised armies in defence of their people, to collaborate with them! At first, they shipped abroad, the “war captives” whom the rulers had obtained through war. The foreigners paid the rulers with such idiotic things as alcoholic drinks, beads, cloth, mirrors and other so-called “novelties” that the more [sebe o tafracher] rulers regarded as useful “acquisitions.”

Finally, humanity lost its meaning on our shores, as kidnappings, even of ethnic group members of one another, became the order of the day. Eventually, the idea of calamitous war as, primarily, an unavoidable mechanism of self-defence, was corrupted and became “war for gain”.

What can be worse for any society than that?

Now, largely unknown to our rulers (because there was little communication between peoples separated by the sea, in those days) the unfortunate people who left our shores were forced – at gunpoint – to work as slaves on sugar-cane, tobacco and tea plantations in North America and the Caribbean. Their unpaid labour made the foreigners who engaged in the “slave trade” extremely wealthy indeed.

So rich and powerful did the foreigners become that when they were forced to stop trading in slaves, they turned on us again, and this time, used their guns to transform our sovereign country – and those of our neighbours – into their “colonies”; that is, we became slaves in our own countries! This time, some of us fought back! The Asantes alone fought the British in scores of battles. Similar battles took place in Nigeria, so-called French Sudan and elsewhere on the African continent.

But Europeans succeeded in ruling us for over 100 years. But by the time they finally gave us political independence (because they could no longer afford to repress our struggle for freedom) they had already “inserted” our economies into a “world economic system” in which we would use our lands to produce for them, “raw materials” that we did not have the ability to turn into manufactured goods ourselves, but must needs sell to them!

We grew cocoa. But we couldn't process it into chocolates or beverages.

We produced gold, diamonds, manganese, bauxite and timber. But none of these valuable “raw materials” was processed here to enable us to benefit from its real “world price”.

Sadly, even our timber, which could so easily have been turned into furniture before being shipped abroad, was carted away as logs. Europeans who owned ships charged high prices to carry the logs away, even though we had carpenters of excellent quality here who could have been trained to use machines to make furniture to world standards, for export. The Europeans charged us cargo fees for taking our logs away, And they charged us again when we shipped goods from their countries to us! We were now slaves through trade!

We think we are now free, but alas, we are back to square one: gold is, once again, making – sebe o, tafracher! – unthinking animals of our people! It's as if a curse had been thrown down to hang around our necks – from the COSMOS itself!

For who would have thought that educated Ghanaians would be so – sebe o! – stupid as to work with foreigners to turn our riverbeds upside down – in search of gold?

With all their education, they cannot see that chemicals like arsenic and mercury, used to turn sand into gold dust or nuggets, on chanfang machines stationed on our river systems, will bring cancer and other diseases to our people when they drank water from the polluted rivers and streams? When they used the water to cook? Or bathe?

Chiefs who should be protecting the rivers, streams and water-bodies their ancestors found for their people, and safeguarded it for them to sustain life forever, pretend that they cannot see galamsey destroying the water on their lands. Why? Because they too get some “tribute”money out of the galamseyers.

Even those who don't take money from the galamseyers are afraid to organise their inherited “ASAFO” groups into strong self-defence units who, in the past, would have kicked out the galamseyers from their land in a matter of days. Why? Because the chiefs are afraid that the ASAFO groups, once reinvigorated, may turn on bad chiefs and destool them! But if a chief is a good chief, why should he fear his own “ASAFO”? He inherited them from his predecessors as his army for self-defence purposes, didn't he?

Politicians who should be mobilising their followers to stop the destruction of the nation they aspire to rule, are throwing insults at one another, instead. They accuse one another of involvement in galamsey. But no-one tells the country how it should be stopped.

No Questions are being asked of the relevant Ministers in Parliament, about galamsey.

No Private Members' Motions are being tabled.

No parliamentary committee enquiries (though MPs can spend hours questioning, in minute detail, the audit reports of local assemblies whose budgets are negligible.)

Soldiers ad policemen sent to enforce the law against galamseyers, are taking money from them and allowing them to go free.

Magistrates and judges before whom galamseyers are brought are taking money from them and allowing them to escape justice. No wonder few galamseyers are being prosecuted, for why should prosecutors present the judiciary with juicy met?

Excavators seized from galamseyers have become an albatross around the necks of the very people who ordered their seizure! Accusations are flying about endlessly – about where the excavators are; whether they have been sold; and if so, to whom, by whom!

Surely, the gods must be laughing, as they watch us from the cosmos, strangling our nation with the rare “gift” of – GOLD?