A Country in Mourning

We demean our common humanity when we resort to violence. We debase our


Constitution when we turn on one another in deadly clashes and we

devalue human life when we snuff it out with such ease.

The past weeks have brought home the horrors of what we believed we left

behind with our apartheid past.

The violent and dreadful crisis at the

Lonmin Marikana Mine in Rustenburg stirred in all of us memories of our

traumatic past where Black life and in particular, African life, was so

cheap and easily discarded. The Lonmin tragedy speaks to the many ills which continue to plague mine workers in the mining industry.

A typical day as a miner at Lonmin mine can be characterized as such:

“Every single day, the drill operators are expected to drill through

30 metres of rock. The tunnel is only about 1.3 metres tall, and so he has to squat and point the heavy drill into the rock and hold it as steady as he can as it thumps

away. He does this for eight hours per shift, in stifling heat,

surrounded only by the din of the drill and the occasional presence of a

shovel.

Almost a third of Lonmin’s workforce is contracted labour, and community demands

for employment have led to protests and unrest. The company was also in

a union dispute, after which Lonmin dismissed 9 000 workers at the

Marikana operations.

It is necessary to contextualize the situation of Lonmin especially in

light of the impending Commission of Inquiry instituted by President

Zuma. It would be necessary and extremely important to examine all

underlying socio-economic tragedy and should be broad enough to encompass all the variables that played such important roles in the escalation of the violence. As a

nation, we have seen and heard many media reports, heard many voices,

felt many emotions and we require resolutions that are not a quick-fix

or merely superficial bandaging of wounds. This inquiry must be able to

give us a comprehensive understanding of how we descended into such

anarchy and how we move forward.

Ours is not to apportion blame on the parties involved. But we should be

worried that 18 years after achieving democracy and laying to rest the

ghost of apartheid, we could so easily regress into possibly the worst

tragedy since the end of apartheid.

We are a country in mourning this week, as we remember the lives lost in

this tragedy. What was a fight for a better wage in order to live a

better life, took a desperate and catastrophic turn resulting in 44

deaths.