What I learned from going to an illegal gold mine (The system 1/2)

Earlier this week, I went into an illegal gold mine in the bush of Mali. Ultimately, we were forced out by machetes and pickaxes, but this very event spurred a lot of thoughts for me. Let me break it down for ya..

The mines were open-pit and an environmental wasteland, as anyone could assume. They were very close to a couple of farming villages, which employed those very farmers. This raised concerns for me about the farmers and the situation at whole.

Farmers

Now, since the farmers are very humble people just looking to live and eat, I was interested in why they would be involved in an environmentally degrading occupation like this. They rely on the environment's health for food and success. Farmers don’t need 'money’ to survive; they need fertility in the earth. Farmers are fundamentally outside the capital system, but due to debt schemes, forced productivity quotas, and consumerism, they have been coerced into thinking they must rely on and participate in the financial systems to survive. In reality, they don’t. This system forces farmers to look for other occupations, and then the farmers become miners to make wealth.

The big irony is: The system puts money above stuff that actually makes us survive.

Now, anywhere in the world, you can see this happen: when something valuable is found beneath fertile cropland, like gold, they will dig for it and ruin the fields for future planting. Granted, they make good money in the moment and can buy things they couldn't before, but once that gold runs out and the fields are destroyed, they will be in worse condition than before.

This raises the question: what if everyone was doing this simultaneously around the world? Everyone uproots the things we actually need to survive for a financial incentive in the same time frame, causing a vacuum of needed goods. Wouldn’t this cause a crash or crisis?

Environmental

The environmental degradation of the area is astounding. Open pit mines everywhere uproot trees and plants pushing heavy stone, silt, and dirt over local ecosystems, which causes more of the plants to die. There is also a risk of opening up toxic metal veins such as lead or mercury that can poison the water table.

As the miners expand, the degradation continues, and one day the mines will reach the fields in which they rely, and they will be the very ones to uproot their own farms and consequently their lives. If they were to speak out against the expansion of the gold mines, they would be silenced. Most likely through one of the many manifestations of the power of money.

Another noticeable risk is that when the gold is gone and the plants grow back, there will be a lot of hidden open pit mines and collapsible tunnels, which can cause death, stunt development, and injury for the local villagers.

There is a great question for us to ask ourselves and others: What is the value of gold? The common answer is scarcity, but there are a lot of things that are scarce, so that doesn’t really hold up in court. They say it does not erode, but what does that actually do for you? What is it besides an adorning agent? I want to know what makes gold so valuable that we sacrifice things of real value, such as water, food, health, each other, and shelter, for it. Because right now I am thinking it is only cultural that we accept it to be valuable for reasons of vanity, and it has no value.

Why do we give up true necessities and value for inferred and accepted value?

The only value of gold is that the whole world believes it is valuable; it is the faith in this substance that brings the value. There is value in it electronically, but the idea of gold has been around long before electronics. And it's not just gold too, but there are many things that are only valuable because they were agreed upon.

This means that we can change everything just by focusing on what we agree is valuable.

Things such as friends, family, culture, arts, health, food, water, shelter, scholarly pursuits, and innovation have real value.

Child miners

There were many child miners. Very strong, albeit, but they are giving up education for the pursuit of a finite resource that holds no loyalty to them or their future. For Gold, they risk lifelong injuries, which, being a dependent in the bushland of Africa, could be a significant burden on their friends and family with no external support, causing further local, societal, and developmental, collapse when the gold mine moves on and all that's left is broken-bodied men. The children are making comparatively a lot of money for their local surroundings, but the money is too dependent on their bodies, and it does not surmount the value of a healthy life.

Women Workers

There were many women walking around the mine selling things like fruit and water for the men, selling things in stalls, and washing clothes. They were just supporters and services to the main function of the mine.

In more developed mines there is a section for prostitution and alcohol, but this one was too small for that. Can you blame the prostitution for coming up in these camps? The trees and farmland are now gone; they are in debt, and their bodies are breaking down. It is a way to pacify and make life easier and more palatable.

Men Miners

The men are the primary miners on site; they are also the breadwinners for their families. They were mired in mud and dirt and exhausted in their eyes. There was not a lot of machinery to break the stone and move the dirt. The heavy machinery to move the earth was largely accompanied by muscle, grit, and will.

The men hold all of the risk because: they break their bodies—there are no doctors, they make nothing compared to the total cost; and they go into these highly unstable tunnels, taking the obvious risk of death.

There are no engineers for supervision; it is just intuition and following the gold veins that carve the tunnels into the sides of the earth. During the rainy season (July-September), only the brave or desperate go into the caves to dig for gold due to the risk of collapse. Unfortunately, I was unable to go into one of the tunnels due to that potential. 

This occupation as a miner is said to be a good occupation for Malians, and many people strive to get that job, but as I said before, this “good” money is too dependent on risky labor, which offers them little in the future due to a lack of investment. Authors note: I did not interview anyone, asking what they were doing with the money and what they were investing in. But it is inferred from observed behavior.

Managers

There was this tent of managers on the top of the hill that were overseeing everything and, I assume, also holding all of the gold. They were the enforcers, and one of them in particular did not like us, and ultimately he was the one who pushed us out of there with a group of miners armed with machetes and pickaxes.

What was interesting about this in particular was that here is a man who is a manager (and I am sure not the head boss), who is not working in the actual mine, who was yelling at us. ‘Us’ who are simple bystanders and are only witnessing what he is a part of. And then, the ones mired in dust, blood, and mud are seeking to defend and enforce their oppressor (system) against an inferred threat (us, witnesses) at all costs. What that brought me to was that since they rely on this system that bores out this shiny metal from the earth for the survival of them and their families, they are ultimately willing to do anything for that system.

This manager, I dont know who he answers to, but to him we posed a risk of his way of life. He is just reacting in the ways he knows; he will protect it from all potential risks. I cannot blame him for his actions, for this is all he knows.

Rule of law

These illegal gold mines in this area are under something like a Mobster rule, not a warlord rule, which ultimately benefited us because the mafia is more strategic and the warlords are more brash. This simple difference in ruling philosophy (even though they do the same thing) may have spared our lives. These mobsters work like the American mafia, extortion, hard rule, cold justice, and most importantly, avoid unneeded attention.

These local mafias answer to international: agencies or mafias. These are the ones buying the gold from them and financing their operation with loans for equipment. Usually they are also the sole customer for these mines, and they rule with a “do what you must do to ensure the payment” mindset. This mindset and philosophy give rise to a lot of bloodshed and forced labor.

The System

Ultimately, all of the parties are participating in a system that holds money and wealth as the highest ideal and foundation. For example, if they held health and happiness as the highest ideal, they wouldn’t be living in this risk and encroaching on their own farm fields.

Here and all over the world, this system is threatening what is actually valuable (food and health) for inferred and accepted value (currency and gold). It justifies this behavior through thinking, “These people are doing what they are doing to survive.” In the face of criticism, a response from the people within the system would be, “What else would you like me to do? We will starve, be killed, or be oppressed further.”

This mentality of thinking we must choose between the lesser of evils instead of the highest good creates these helpless feeling outcomes.

  Think of it like this: there is a wagon; they tell you that you should tie yourself to this wagon, and when the wagon begins to move, you have a choice: to run next to it or be dragged. In any way you choose, you will be moved by the wagon.

The wagon represents society and its aims and motives; the person is you unknowingly but willingly participating in the system. They who tell you to tie yourself to the wagon are the dominant culture and mainstream thought of the “everyone is doing it” mindset. You must run along next to the wagon to survive or be the one being dragged, so what do you choose? Before we answer this, we should be asking, What if I don't tie myself to the wagon? Furthermore, I would like to add Just because it is said does not mean it is true. You, I, and all have the option to not participate and play in a game that we are bound to lose in.

The current system is hierarchal, where only a small percentage of the population can make any sort of real progress. While everyone works an egregious amount of hours, they also feel helpless because they never see any change in the ways they want to see change. They can't ‘progress’ because the way the system is set up, it is accepted and believed by many that there is only enough for one winner and there is no win-win solution. That is simply not the case; there is enough in the world where we can all live in a win-win society.

I am not pushing for one economic model or political system over the other, but I am saying we are focusing on finite and scarcity ideals such as gold that perpetuate this system of greed and violence to survive. And as long as societal ideals put competition of these finite resources as the foundation, there will always be someone willing to do the worst evil in order to succeed and retain power. Invertly, if we were to have a foundation based on infinite ideals such as true education, enlightenment, and awareness in all forms of un-education (ignorance), the rate and frequency of these things (greed, corruption, unneeded war, violence, etc.) would drop dramatically, causing the system to change into something that's better for all. The quality of everyone's life would improve.

Currently, it is very hard to put these higher ideals of education and pursuing one's own fate into one's daily life because it could prevent us from participating in the dominating system, which would restrict our access to common resources that are needed and unneeded. And again, we would threaten ourselves and our dependents survival.

The miner boys—if they want to become a machinist, artist, engineer, thought leader, etc.—will threaten his family's survival; therefore, he sacrifices his fate for the safety of his family by staying asa miner.

Which is honorable. It is the wagon, and he is told to be dragged or to run; he makes the best choice he can make. There is an overarching issue here. This is not an individual case or a case only in Africa or the global south. This is the case everywhere, even in the west. People are being forced to sacrifice their fate for their families survival.

We should not be living these lives ridden with depression and anxiety. It does not mean we are emotionally weak. We are in an un-accommodating system. Life must not be suffering to the degree we are experiencing.

So take this away:

The system is focused and built on finite resources. Since something is constantly running out, the more we use it, there will be more innovative and harsher ways to extract said resource. We are all sacrificing ourselves for a shiny rock. It does not have to be this way, and we can all win.

System relies on vanity and comparison; these two desires create anxiety and depression when inevitably coming up short in the perfection for others praise.

The only thing that holds this all in place is the belief of the users.

We can't really blame the people (miners, managers, soldiers, prostitutes, pimps, cops, and teachers) participating and perpetuating the system because they are doing what they know to be right, and they know to be right by what they were told.

We must offer grace to all people, even the ones that we usually don't. Perpetrator, victims, and bystander. All parties are participating in a system or model that forces this behavior, and I give my grace and prayers to all.

As long as we have systems that put money and material wealth as the highest ideal, we cannot escape the symptoms. Don't curse the symptom; cure the cause!

Bless all and peace for all, may the highest wisdom be attained by all <3

Cinque