South Africa's reputation took another downward dive the mining dispute made the headlines again. Not content with opening fire and killing striking workers, the State has now arrested and charged the survivors with murder.
By invoking and old apartheid-era law, and ignoring the irony, the ANC led government (also including so-called communists and trade union parties) is claiming that the workers, by their common action, led to the massacre and therefore are 'guilty of murder'.
The classic division and rule, pitting worker against worker means the reasons the men struck in the first place is gradually being forgotten and overshadowed by violence and bloodshed. The terrible conditions, the poverty level pay, the dangerous working environment are being forgotten, the real thieves in the mine owners, are being allowed to hide behind a wall of state defence.
Perhaps the South African state is an extreme example of the futility of political reformism - a government elected and maintained by an alleged mass movement of the left, who even describe themselves as "the disciplined force of the left" are almost openly capitalist, and now more evidently blatantly running the country for the benefit of profits over people.And from this event it seems they are not above shooting and then charging striking workers rather than supporting them.
SussexSocialist
1 comment:
Comrades may be interested in this bit of follow-up journalism
http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-08-30-the-murder-fields-of-marikana-the-cold-murder-fields-of-marikana
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