In the 1730s, Swedish physician Georg Brandt (1694-1768) discovered cobalt as the first substance other than iron to be attracted to a magnet. And Brandt named it cobalt due to certain magical references, since the word cobalt derives from the word kobold (coboldo) which in German means elf.
Because in Germany, miners in the Middle Ages blamed mischievous goblins for their bad luck every time they found this mineral instead of silver. Nowadays things have changed and cobalt is valued as much or more than silver, although, for many people, its name is the entry code to hell.
It can be said that this ferromagnetic metal is an open wound in the Democratic Republic of Congo, its place of exploitation and territory historically punished for being a source of resources for decades, whether copper for infantry weapons, uranium to make nuclear bombs or precious metals. such as silver and gold, as well as diamonds.
The Congo became an area of commercial profits since, one day, British Lieutenant Verney Lovett Cameron, after crossing the heart of African darkness, reported with an article in the newspaper The Times on January 7, 1876 that the interior of the country was of “unspeakable wealth.”
With his report, the British lieutenant provoked the entrepreneurial capitalists of those times and arranged them to make their investments safely. From then on, the Congo would become a place to be looted. Today, the trend continues to rise, as researcher and activist Siddharth Kara tells us in cobalt red (Captain Swing), since this mineral is so important that it is essential for our way of life.
Without going any further, cobalt is necessary for mobile phones, computers and other technological gadgets to function autonomously. Therefore, misery in the heart of the African continent is spreading at high speed. Siddharth Kara explains how foreign companies displace villagers after expropriating their land and relegate them to a miserable existence as artisanal miners where mining red cobalt is their only way of life. They don’t get more than two dollars a bag. If you add to this that cobalt contains arsenic, then things get ugly.
As the chronicles tell, copper miners in Germany fell ill when they found a blue mineral that they confused with copper but which did not contain copper. Although it was not yet baptized, the mineral was cobalt and what it contained was arsenic. Without a doubt, the evil goblin of the Middle Ages continued to entangle and not only confused the miners, but also played with their health, turning the mine into the entrance to Dante’s Inferno where an inscription on the door reads: “Abandon all hope “.
The stone ax It is a section where Montero Glezwith a desire for prose, exercises its particular siege on scientific reality to demonstrate that science and art are complementary forms of knowledge.
You can follow MATERIA in Facebook, X e Instagramclick here to receive our weekly newsletter.
to continue reading
_