Marikana | Terry Bell Writes

Browsing All posts tagged under »Marikana«

A Marikana miner speaks

March 13, 2013

A brief report by lawyer Jim Nichol that sums up the experience and feelings of many ordinary miners who survived the horrific tragedy at Marikana.

Inauspicious start to the ANC’s year

February 9, 2013

It was a not very auspicious start to 2013 for South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC). Not only did a host of unwelcome baggage from the past come tumbling into the new year, but other, new, difficulties also emerged before the year was even a month old.

Marikana, farms and forestry

November 24, 2012

There are none so blind as those that will not see. It is a saying popularised more than 300 years ago and it has had marked resonance following the bloody events at Marikana and the more recent upheavals among the fruit and wine farms of the Western Cape. At Marikana, 34 striking miners were shot […]

SA unrest: explosions waiting to happen…

November 16, 2012

There should have been no surprise or outrage expressed by mining companies, agribusiness, and government officials about the recent explosion of strikes and protests on mines and farms. And trade unionists across the board should not have been caught flat-footed by the outbursts of anger that erupted in the North West, Limpopo and now in […]

Trade unions and the need for transformation

November 8, 2012

It can be argued today that trade unions are more necessary than ever; that the organisations that played major roles in improving the political and economic lot of people around the world, have a huge task ahead of them. Yet much of the labour movement internationally is in a state of flux or stagnation and, in South Africa, there are signs of considerable disarray.

The role of unions in a time of crisis

November 5, 2012

In a world wracked by ongoing economic crises, what is the role of trade unions? These questions came to the fore again in South Africa in the aftermath of the bloodshed at Marikana on August 16. But they are also being asked around the world as unions become embroiled in increasingly fractious relations with employers, governments and, all too often, their own members.

Exposing the race/class fault lines in SA society

October 5, 2012

The racial and class fault lines in South African society, papered over by rainbow nation platitudes and disguised for global consumption by the myth of a negotiated miracle, have been brutally exposed. When, as it has now emerged, special para-military units of the police opened fire on miners at Lonmin’s Marikana mine on August 16, the resultant bloodshed washed away the last traces of hypocritical camouflage; it also acted as a catalyst creating conditions in which dangerous and opportunistic political viruses thrive.

Marikana — and SA’s frayed social fabric

September 24, 2012

The mayhem at Marikana cast the spotlight on the platinum sector and on mining in general. But until and unless all the issues raised by the Marikana moment — and which apply to the country as a whole — are comprehensively addressed, the social fabric of South Africa will continue to become dangerously frayed.