Ghana is 51 years old. The euphoria of the jubilee celebration is over, although we are still under the shadow of the blessings of the jubilee. As we begin the journey to the next 50 years of nationhood, we shall have to introspect and identify our strengths and weaknesses, so as to make progress with minimum impediments, or handicaps, lest we consistently repeat those mistakes that had bedeviled our development, and kept us poor and frustrated. In this article, we shall discuss the loadstar of the national symbol depicted in the national flag: The Black Star. We shall first understand what symbolism is, then apply it to Ghana's Black Star. The sequel to this article is: "The Black Star Must Go!" We shall learn that the symbolism of the Black Star is negative and inharmonious with the best development of the nation, and that it was time we changed it, especially as Ghana begins its next 50 years of growth. Symbol comes from the Greek word symbolon. It means contract, token, insignia, and a means of identification. The use and purpose of a symbol is to set forth in visible or audible likeness, what cannot be really or fully expressed to the physical eye, ear, or even conceived by the mind. Symbols grow out of the individual or collective unconscious and cannot function without being accepted by the unconscious dimension of our being. That is to say, the symbolic object requires the association of certain conscious ideas in order to fully express what is meant by it. A symbol therefore has an inner or esoteric meaning, and an outer or exoteric meaning. Humans and the natural world of symbols are one indivisible body. Nothing exists in isolation. Our use of symbols arises from the perceived influence of those things in our lives. When we consciously choose a symbol, we transfer to it all the natural and human attributes that we have, infusing it, as it were, with what the famous psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, calls a numinous power. And, as Lyall Watson says in the quote above, symbols are more than they seem, carrying some awesome loads. When the fetish priest erects an image for his god at his shrine, and begins to libate to it, and perform other rites, he transfers to that inanimate object some power, and the object begins to respond to his thoughts and commands and, in time, starts to direct him, in response to his faith in that object. In other words, the object has become numinous (from the word numen, meaning a presiding deity). At that stage, the awesomeness of the object, the symbol, becomes obvious when it makes demands on the priest and, for fear of death, the priest is compelled to heed to the dictates of the symbol, the image of his god. Further, the numinous symbol also emanates its own energies and influences, thus affecting those who come under its influence. Symbols serve different functions, and some of these are: (1) Symbols represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend, and this abounds in religious symbolism, and language. The Lord's Supper is a representational symbol of a spiritual reality to take place in heaven one day. The Gye Nyame in Akan symbolism represents the omnipotence, omnipresence of God. Its number is 10, representing one in numerology, and symbolising the single ground or parenthood (the primeval monad) of all created things. (2) Symbols participate in that to which they point. For example, the flag participates in the power and dignity of the nation, for which it stands. An attack on the flag is an attack on the nation. (3) Symbols function as the incarnate presence of the sacred or holy. Such are the meanings of ancestral stools, the Cross, and the Grotto. (4) Symbols function in the social realm to inspire, sanctify, and consolidate the participants in the ritual. Marriage, investiture and swearing-in are all symbolic. (5) Symbols open up levels of spiritual or psychic dimensions within us which are otherwise closed to our normal minds. Music, dance and art works operate that way. Now that we have known some of the functions of symbols, let's state how they affect our mind and actions. Symbols operate on us in two ways: The conscious and the subconscious. Our first reaction to a symbol is with our conscious mind. At that stage we form a mental connection with it. We decide to relate to it and benefit from its influence. When danger arises at home and a Catholic believer takes the rosary or cross to pray with, a conscious connection has been established with the symbol. When she begins to pray on the basis of faith, there ensues a transformational power of the symbol at the subconscious level, where a mix of mental, emotional, psychic and other inner powers create an effect to influence what she is praying about. Some priests prophesy only under the influence of music. The music acts on their conscious mind, which they appreciate, and then it works itself into their inner minds, from where revelations, either visual, or audible flow out, which they then speak. Two things are required for a symbol to work its effect: The symbol and the individual interpreting the symbol. In the interpretation of symbols, faith and knowledge go together; knowledge of what the symbol is, and faith in its ability to produce a specific effect. A famed example is that of the birth of Jesus Christ, recorded in the Gospels. The three wise men saw a bright star, which symbolised the birth of Christ. The symbol was the star; the interpretation by the wise men that a saviour had been born was based on faith and knowledge. From his psychoanalytic studies, Carl Jung came to the conclusion that people were so afraid of critical thinking that they turned a blind eye to the numinous psychic powers that control man's fate. Although we have stripped modern life of its mystical and irrational elements, our inner world is full of such things: Primitive beliefs. When we charge a symbol with emotion, it gains numinosity (psychic energy). It becomes dynamic and consequences flow from it. However, because some people cannot deal with the reality of power flowing from a particular symbol, they altogether deny the psychic life of it, because the reality is beyond their understanding. We call such denial of psychic reality or fear of the new and unknown as misoneism. To Jung, symbols are indivisibly part of us, and we cannot wish them away. Against this background idea of the nature and functions of symbols, where does the Black Star come in? Pan Africanists like Marcus Garvey, George Padmore, and Du Bois conceived of the black race emerging from darkness, and shining with the genius of the race. Kwame Nkrumah seized upon this idea and tagged Ghana to be the star of the black race. This was the idea behind Theodosia Okoh's creation of the motif of the national flag. Excellent idea. However, stars have been defined as "massive self-luminous objects, shining by radiation, derived from internal energy sources" (British Encyclopaedia). The question to answer is: Why did the founding fathers not leave the star in its natural form: a shining object? Why did they have to kill the light of the star with a racist twist, and turn it black? It is my respectful submission that by giving a racial tag to the star, and making it black, the founding fathers unwittingly committed a fundamental and fatal mistake with respect to the birth, growth, and development of Ghana. Is there such thing as a black star? What is a star without light? When a star burns itself in space it ceases to exist. Its space is black, just like the backdrop of space. A black star is empirically non-existent and inconceivable. It is a symbol of absurdity, illogicality, negativity, unnaturalness and, therefore, self-destructive. Imagine the sun suddenly ceasing to shine, losing its brilliance and energy. Will it then be a sun? Such is the Black Star of Ghana. Is a human being useful when alive or when a corpse? Such is the Black Star of Ghana. Symbolically, again, black has a universal connotation in most cultures as depicting death, sorrow, pain. In Ghana, our funeral cloths of black are used on occasions of death! Did our founding fathers not think of this? Black, as a colour, absorbs all other colours into itself, and reflects nothing! Black, the absence of light, is the environment of evil. It stands in contrast to what is positive, attractive, and desirable. In Joel 2:10, the writer declaims: The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: The sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The knowledge of colour symbolism influenced the choice of national flags. Here are some examples: Blue: Freedom (Western Samoa) Sky (Lesotho, UK, US) Sea & Water (Tanzania & Sudan) Red: Defiance (Universal) Sacrifice (Ghana, UK, USSR, Egypt) Vitality (Trinidad, Tobago) White: Purity (West Samoa, UK, US, Singapore, Philippines) Peace & Prosperity (Egypt, Mexico, Philippines) Unity (Nigeria, Cuba) Independence & Glory (US) The use of black in the flags refer to negative things, apart from depicting the race of Africans. The universal association of black with death, hardship, backwardness, and evil shows that there are fundamental truths which unite the human race, and which would be foolish to deny. Ghana's Black Star has perplexed Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians, since independence. Unfortunately, no Ghanaian leader has had the knowledge and courage to suggest a change of the loadstar. Source: Ahumah Ocansey/Daily Graphic