Exactly a year after policemen gunned down 43 workers outside Lonmin mines near Rustenburg, the question remains: have any lessons been learnt from this tragedy?
Exactly a year after policemen gunned down 43 workers outside Lonmin mines near Rustenburg, the question remains: have any lessons been learnt from this tragedy?
“The stories we like to tell ourselves about ourselves in South Africa have been wrapped up in a narrative of progress,” says Rhodes University lecturer and political commentator Richard Pithouse, “so it’s tempting to read even horrific events in pedagogical terms, as moments of hard-won enlightenment on our way forward.”
The reality of what has happened since the massacre suggests Pithouse has a point. That this tragedy would lead to improved governance was a naïve assumption.
Nor can we expect that the ruling party, or the State it controls, would suddenly be committed to democratic modes of engagement. The ongoing political violence in KwaZulu-Natal, rampant corruption and the hyper-masculine posturing affirm a continuing degeneration.
“The ANC has reached the point where it is not reformable. There are powerful forces within the organisation that are perfectly willing to use violence and intimidation to sustain their hold on power,” says Pithouse. “More blood will be shed.”
Warring organisations like the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union and the National Union of Mine Workers (NUM) nearly put their differences aside to attend the Marikana commemoration today. NUM pulled out late yesterday afternoon (Thursday) however, claiming that the event had been “hijacked” by the so-called Marikana Support Group.
Pithouse believes that the days are gone when black unions were vital actors in the struggle for justice. To him, Cosatu (of which NUM is an affiliate) is yet another example of a “pro-State federation dominated by the public sector unions”.
There is still no redress for the 43 victims of the massacre. The Farlam commission of inquiry that commenced last September has, aside from Police Chief Rhiya Piyega’s scurrilous responses, done little to bring any sense of accountability. Not a single police offer has been arrested.
“Colonial massacres were usually followed by a commission, but none of them recommended the end of colonialism,” said Pithouse. “Marikana has shown that the mining industry remains massively exploitative. The problem we face to a predatory form of capitalism is deeply political; given that the ANC treats popular organisations outside its control as illegitimate, as criminal, as treasonous.”
Something that has been largely neglected is the escalating state violence. That this did not start with Marikana was proven when the visuals of Ficksburg teacher Andries Tatane being beaten to death by policemen were circulated.
“The state has been killing protesters at an escalating rate since 2000. Marikana took it to a new level, but it certainly wasn’t an aberration,” says Pithouse.
In all this, miners’ voices have been consistently absent. According to a report by Rhodes Prof Jane Duncan, the Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society, only 3% of all newspaper stories included any input from those who were actually shot at.
