Marikana Miners: The Massacre Of Our Illusions

[polly7]

By Leonard Gentle

Source: Redpepper.org

Friday, August 31, 2012

http://www.zcommunications.org/marikana-miners-the-massacre-of-our-illusions-by-leonard-gentle

The story of Marikana has so far been painted shallowly as an inter-union spat. In the first few days after the fateful Thursday and the shock and horror of watching people being massacred on TV there have correctly been howls of anger and grief. Of course no one wants to take responsibility because to do so would be to acknowledge blame. Some pundits have even gone the way of warning at anyone ‘pointing figures’ or ‘stoking anger’. That buffoon Julius Malema stepped forward as if scripted and promptly lent credibility to those warnings. So President Zuma’s setting up of an Inquiry and his call for a week of mourning for the deceased and their families could come across as ‘statesmanlike’.

But this is not just a story of hardship, violence and grief. To speak in those terms only would be to add the same insult to injury perpetrated by the police on the striking workers as many commentators have done - that of seeing the striking miners as mere victims and not as agents of their own future and, even more importantly, as a source of a new movement in the making. ......