I thought I'd share this article from AL Jazeera about an ugly event we had this week, figured that you guys would be interested.
I've pulled out a few quotes, but please hit the link for more thorough analysis.
What began as a typically grating labour dispute between unions and a mining magnate over poor wages and working conditions - the daily grist of fragile labour relations in South Africa - turned quickly into a week of violent clashes with police, talk of death threats and sporadic killings.And then came the game changer.
Thirty-four striking miners were killed and scores more were wounded when police unleashed a spray of bullets at the assembled crowd outside the Lonmin-owned platinum mine at Marikana on Thursday, in what is being described as the most violent police operation since the end of apartheid.
Confusion over the finer details of the shooting still abounds, but just days later, scrutiny of the shooting itself pales against the more probing questions of the real character of South Africa that it has exposed.In fact, scrutiny has now fallen on the incongruities of post-apartheid South Africa - perhaps more closely than ever before.
With the aid of the perhaps illusionary rhetoric of "the new South Africa" that is hard at work tackling an ever widening income inequality gap, a rampant rate of gender violence and a stubborn culture of corruption, the ANC-led government has been able to choreograph a compelling narrative of satisfactory growth, multicultural reconciliation, and political stability, at the tip of a continent that many perceive as locked into a spiral of poverty, exploitation and ruthless mismanagement.
In apparent reward for rescuing itself from Apartheid without too much fuss, South Africa punches far above its weight in world politics. The country's inclusion into the BRICS club of emerging economies, its membership to the G20, two stints as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and, most recently, its successful election to the chair of the AU Commission, all go to illustrate South Africa's growing clout on the world stage.
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Despite being classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank, unemployment in South Africa sits between 25 and 36 per cent. An estimated 50 per cent of the population lives under the poverty line. Recently, Unicef said that seven out of ten children live in homes that endure severe poverty. The group also discussed a set of circumstances that places the country in an unlikely position to be able to reunite its diverging societies of rich and poor.
Then in June, the World Bank applied its newly developed Human Opportunity Index to South Africa and the results were far from flattering.
While the report lauded the impressive gains made in access to primary education, electricity and telecommunications, it noted as well that the spatial effects of Apartheid still determined how well these services were actually distributed.
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The disparate world of rampant inequality, where the black majority continues to live in an apparent disconnect from the vision of the new dispensation, was echoed widely in angry editorials of the The Sowetan and Amandla magazine, the morning after the shooting.
The Sowetan described South Africa as "an abnormal country … where the value of human life, especially that of the African, continues to be meaningless", while Amandla said the tragedy "sums up the shallowness of transformation".
It is the narrative of transformation, South Africa's ability to emerge from an ugly past through negotiations and reconciliation that has been abruptly torn asunder by events in Marikana this week.
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While the world hails South Africa as the definitive gateway to Africa, encouraging the country to assert its clout more prominently across the continent, a growing discontent lurking beneath the surface has been brushed aside. Low-income suburbs are crippled by an overwrought electrical grid; dusty townships remain lawless and insecure, and up to 12 million South Africans live in slums, where they face poor sanitation, barriers to water access and attacks on human dignity.
"Many communities protesting against poor service delivery suffer police repression and excessive state violence on a daily basis," Mngxitama said.
Police brutalitySouth African police say they were acting in self-defence at Marikana on Thursday, but the scale of the damage, recorded in part by television cameras, has once more set off alarm bells concerning the capacity of the police and a perception among some regarding their inclination towards violence. In 2011, police behaviour was highlighted when community leader Andries Tatane died after a beating, reportedly at the hands of police, during a protest in Ficksburg in the Free State.
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Sipho Hlongwane, political correspondent at Daily Maverick, said that the most shocking aspect of the Marikana incident was the reportedly slow response of the police and authorities.
"This incident did not come out of the blue, like perhaps the [Andries] Tatane incident … it was brewing for a week. Ten people had already died and still the police and authorities did nothing," he said.
"The ANC will stop at nothing to defend the narrow interests of the political elite."
Hlongwane's observation is particularly significant when viewed in the context of police operations at community protests in recent years
To answer the question in the thread title, 'Yes, the pigs have the farm now and people are starting to realise.' I'm still personally processing the events and what they probably mean in the longer run. While my first thought is that shooting at police will only go in one direction the fact that this was a slow burn that authorities allowed to get out of control makes it far more complicated, and is all indicative of deep fractures in our society.
It's all either part of the growth process of a country that has undergone what is actually in many ways a remarkably peaceful transition, or symptoms of a complete, slow breakdown and I suspect only history will have the answer.
If anyone has opinions to share or questions to ask please do so, it will help me form my own thoughts.
The strike was the kind of thing i'd hear about on BBC Worldwide on the drive home and say "I should do a little more learning about this" and then forget to do so. I need to do a little reading on this.
Hmm.... I suppose the simple fact that you're here, posting on GWJ, means you're one of the people for which the new economic regime is working. It sounds like there needs to be a great deal more infrastructure investment into the areas that have been poor for so long.
But, that said, there may be reasons why some areas are staying poor that's not related to racism... there may just not be anything there worth building an economy around, kind of like what's happened with Detroit in the US.
And, of course, you're in the middle of a world that's going off the economic rails, one that's choking on debt and barely holding things together. So of course things are going wacky in SA, because they're going crazy anywhere that's not closely connected to the banking system.
I don't have anything to add, as I'm not really informed on South-African politics. But that doesn't mean I'm not eagerly clicking refresh to find out more about your country If you find the time and korosje (awesome Flemish word for 'lust for work') to post more, please keep 'em coming!
Would a good summary of the SA situation be that it's the same as during Apartheid, except for a tiny black elite (mainly the ANC) joining the white establishment?
I guess the question I'd like to know is whether the infrastructure will get built out for a critical mass of people before the critical mass of people get fed up. And I'd also like to know what the government's response will be when the people do get fed up, repression like the mine incident, Zimbabwean style handouts, or something else. If enough people's basic needs get taken care of, I'd think the desire to radicalize would go way down.
Apropos of nothing, I lived in Durban for the year in 1987. Pretty awesome place to live.
What does the public opinion think of the mine strike shootings? Especially the middle class?
What does the public opinion think of the mine strike shootings? Especially the middle class?
If I'm reading the situation right, this question isn't really relevant. There may or may not be a middle class in South Africa, but if it's anything like what I imagine, that social class is small and relatively powerless. The poor majority have power by dint of being the working underclass, and by sheer weight of population; and the rich minority have power by dint of being better educated, and having control of the bulk of wealth and political influence. At least, that is how I'm reading the situation.
"Public opinion" in this case is a non-starter. Of course, the poor will have their opinions about what's going on, and the rich will have theirs. Those opinions will characterize the bulk of public opinion, and they will each be partial to their own interests.
Even autocracies like to appease the population, LarryC.
Anyway, I would like to know regardless of how much it matters to the corrupt elite
The 270 miners arrested earlier this month have been charged with murder. Who did they murder, you might ask? The 34 people the police killed, of course.
Yeah, I heard that on the news today. That's freaking insane. MrDeVil, I dunno how your government works, but that would be worthy of a call to your representative, if you have one.
Any more developments in this case, MrDeVil? Were the charges dropped?
Any more developments in this case, MrDeVil? Were the charges dropped?
The charges were dropped, but the prosecution reserved the right to re-charge the miners after the event was more fully investigated.
Rallick wrote:Any more developments in this case, MrDeVil? Were the charges dropped?
The charges were dropped, but the prosecution reserved the right to re-charge the miners after the event was more fully investigated.
In other words: when the media's goldfish-like attention span has been exceeded.
Well, that's good to hear.
Yeah, that's a relief. Now you need to get rid of that prosecutor.
Those are both extremely painful to read.
What's being done about this?
So the police are just going to get away with it?
Yeah, but the BBC coverage said that the lawyer for the bereaved relatives wanted a two-week recess, so that he could travel to all of them, but the court refused. That doesn't bode especially well.
South Africa shootings: Marikana mine inquiry begins
A short time into the proceedings, a lawyer representing families of dead miners asked for a postponement of at least 14 days. Dumisa Ntsebeza said this would give him time to consult his clients, who are scattered across a vast rural area.He was supported by the lawyer representing most of the 270 miners arrested following the shootings, says the BBC's Milton Nkosi at the court. The counsel for the police made no objection.
But the commission rejected the request for a two-week adjournment, saying its work needed to be completed with speed.
Favoring speed over justice is rarely (never?) a good idea.
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