Marikana

Marikana PDF Author: Julian Brown
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1847012841
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
In August 2012 the South African police - at the encouragement of mining capital, and with the support of the political state - intervened to end a week-long strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, in South Africa's NorthWest Province. On the afternoon of Thursday, 16 August, they police shot and killed 34 men. Hundreds more were injured, some shot as they fled. None posed a threat to any police officer. Recognised by many as an event of international significance in stories of global politics and labour relations, the perspectives of the miners has however been almost missing from published accounts. This book, for the first time, brings into focus the mens' lives - and deaths - telling the stories of those who embarked on the strike, those who were killed, and of the family members who have survived to fight for the memories of their loved ones. It places the strike in the context of South Africa's long history of racial and economic exclusion, explaining how the miners came to be in Marikana, how their lives were ordinarily lived, and the substance of their complaints. It shows how the strike developed from an initial gathering into a mass movement of more than 3,000 workers. It discusses the violence of the strike and explores the political context of the state's response, and the eagerness of the police to collaborate in suppressing the strike.Recounting the events of the massacre in unprecedented detail, the book sets out how each miner died and everything we know about the police operation. Finally, Brown traces the aftermath: the attempts of the families of the deceased to identify and bury their dead, and then the state's attempts to spin a narrative that placed all blame on the miners; the subsequent Commission of Inquiry - and its failure to resolve any real issues; and the solidarity politics that have emerged since.

Marikana

Marikana PDF Author: Julian Brown
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1847012841
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book

Book Description
In August 2012 the South African police - at the encouragement of mining capital, and with the support of the political state - intervened to end a week-long strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, in South Africa's NorthWest Province. On the afternoon of Thursday, 16 August, they police shot and killed 34 men. Hundreds more were injured, some shot as they fled. None posed a threat to any police officer. Recognised by many as an event of international significance in stories of global politics and labour relations, the perspectives of the miners has however been almost missing from published accounts. This book, for the first time, brings into focus the mens' lives - and deaths - telling the stories of those who embarked on the strike, those who were killed, and of the family members who have survived to fight for the memories of their loved ones. It places the strike in the context of South Africa's long history of racial and economic exclusion, explaining how the miners came to be in Marikana, how their lives were ordinarily lived, and the substance of their complaints. It shows how the strike developed from an initial gathering into a mass movement of more than 3,000 workers. It discusses the violence of the strike and explores the political context of the state's response, and the eagerness of the police to collaborate in suppressing the strike.Recounting the events of the massacre in unprecedented detail, the book sets out how each miner died and everything we know about the police operation. Finally, Brown traces the aftermath: the attempts of the families of the deceased to identify and bury their dead, and then the state's attempts to spin a narrative that placed all blame on the miners; the subsequent Commission of Inquiry - and its failure to resolve any real issues; and the solidarity politics that have emerged since.

The Spirit of Marikana

The Spirit of Marikana PDF Author: Luke Sinwell
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN: 9780745336534
Category : Labor disputes
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
On 16th August 2012, thirty-four black mineworkers were gunned down by the police under the auspices of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) in what has become known as the Marikana massacre. This attempt to drown independent working-class power in blood backfired and is now recognised as a turning point in the country's history.The Spirit of Marikana tells the story of the uncelebrated leaders at the world's three largest platinum mining companies who survived the barrage of state violence, intimidation, torture and murder which was being perpetrated during this tumultuous period. What began as a discussion about wage increases between two workers in the changing rooms at one mine became a rallying cry for economic freedom and basic dignity.This gripping ethnographic account is the first comprehensive study of this movement, revealing how seemingly ordinary people became heroic figures who transformed their workplace and their country.

Murder at Small Koppie

Murder at Small Koppie PDF Author: Greg Marinovich
Publisher: African History and Culture
ISBN: 9781611862768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An award-winning investigation that has been called the most important piece of journalism in post-apartheid South Africa, Murder at Small Koppie delves into the truth behind the massacre that killed thirty-four platinum miners and wounded seventy-eight more in August of 2012 at the Marikana platinum mine in South Africa's North West province. News footage of the event caused global outra≥ however, it captured only a dozen or so of the dead. Here, Pulitzer Prize-winner Greg Marinovich focuses on the violence that took place at Small Koppie, a collection of boulders where a second massacre took place off-camera and in cold blood. Combining his own meticulous research, eyewitness accounts, and the findings of the Marikana Commission of Inquiry, Marinovich has crafted a vivid account of the tragedy and the events leading up to it. By taking readers into the mines, the shacks where the miners live, and the boardroom, Marinovich puts names, faces, and stories to Marikana's victims and perpetrators. He addresses the big questions that any nation must ask when justice and equality are subverted by conflicts around class, race, money, and power, as well as the subsequent denial and finger-pointing that characterized the response of the mine owner, police, and government. This is a story that is both stirring and accurate.

Marikana

Marikana PDF Author: Peter Alexander
Publisher: Jacana Media
ISBN: 143140733X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Dubbed the "Marikana Massacre," the Marikana miners’ strike was the single most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since the end of apartheid; those killed were mineworkers in pursuit of a pay raise. Through a series of interviews conducted with workers who survived the attack, this account documents and examines the controversial shootings in great detail. In addition, it includes a narrative of the preceding events as well as of the violence itself written from the perspective of the strikers. Unique and revealing, his book tells of police murders, sadness, bravery, and pride.

Marikana

Marikana PDF Author: Jack Shenker
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783606436
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
On 16 August 2012, the world looked on in horror as South African police gunned down striking mine workers at Marikana, leaving thirty-four dead and many more wounded. It was a massacre that echoed apartheid-era violence at Sharpeville and Soweto, shattering the international image of South Africa as a liberated 'rainbow nation'. The bloodshed laid bare the lingering inequalities and class tensions that have endured beyond South Africa’s democratic transition, and which the ruling African National Congress has done little to address. Marikana, an ebook exclusive by award-winning Guardian journalist Jack Shenker, explores the origins of the massacre and the truth behind the establishment’s attempted cover-up, which has played out against a backdrop of growing popular disillusionment with the ANC and a spike in worker militancy. Weaving together the history of international mining interests in southern Africa, the mutation of the ANC from economic radicals into free-market cheerleaders and the emergence of new forms of popular resistance, Marikana poses vital questions about the massacre’s legacy both within South Africa’s borders and beyond. Offering a new and invaluable insight into one of the darkest episodes in South Africa’s modern history, Shenker’s work could not be more timely.

We are Going to Kill Each Other Today

We are Going to Kill Each Other Today PDF Author: Thanduxolo Jika
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780624063452
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
'Tomorrow morning, the men will sing again. Their spears, pangas, inculas and sticks will clatter menacingly. They will recite battle cries from their homelands, and move about in organised columns, raising clouds of dust. But 34 of them will sing for the very last time.' In August 2012, after a standoff lasting several days, South African police opened fire on armed mineworkers who had gathered on a koppie at Marikana in North West Province. The mineworkers were on strike in defiance of their employer, their trade union, formal wage agreements, and ultimately, the South African state. Thirty-four were killed, and many more were wounded. The shootings provoked a national and international outcry, and invited comparisons with the Sharpeville massacre that happened under apartheid. Describing the loss of life among workers and others as 'tragic and regrettable', the government appointed a commission of inquiry which was still in session ten months later. Among the people drawn to Marikana were reporters and photographers working for the newspaper City Press. Profoundly affected by their experiences, they embarked on a journey to uncover the 'story behind the story' - where the mineworkers had come from, how they had lived, the impacts of their deaths on their families and communities, and what had driven them to take such drastic action. Their quest took them into the sprawling shack settlements around Marikana, poverty-stricken neighbouring states, and the desolate hinterlands of the Eastern Cape. Their reportage won the 'story of the year' category in the 2013 Standard Bank Sikuvile Journalism Awards. This book draws on and extends their prize-winning work. Poignant, revealing, and sometimes shocking, it provides a riveting account of the events before, during, and after the strike, and its significance for post-apartheid South Africa. In this book their accounts are enriched with valuable source material, including edited versions of evidence by key witnesses to the commission of inquiry, and a seminal analysis of the causal role played by the migrant labour system in the ongoing labour crisis in the South African mining industry.

Twice the Work of Free Labor

Twice the Work of Free Labor PDF Author: Alexander C. Lichtenstein
Publisher: Verso
ISBN: 9781859840863
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Twice the Work of Free Labor is both a study of penal labor in the southern United States, and a revisionist analysis of the political economy of the South after the Civil War.

Rural Resistance in South Africa

Rural Resistance in South Africa PDF Author: Thembela Kepe
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900421495X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Drawing on scholarship from multiple disciplines, this volume presents a fresh understanding of the Mpondo uprising in South Africa; focusing on its meanings and significance in relation to land, rural governance, politics and the agency of the marginalized.

Marikana Unresolved: the massacre, culpability and consequences

Marikana Unresolved: the massacre, culpability and consequences PDF Author: Mia Swart
Publisher: Juta and Company Ltd
ISBN: 1775822788
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1

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Book Description
The Marikana massacre of 16 August 2012, during which 34 miners on strike were shot and killed by police at the Lonmin Mine in South Africa’s North West province, remains a scar in the tissue of this newly democratic country. Several years after the massacre, and despite a lengthy commission of enquiry into the events around that date, there has still been no satisfactory political or legal accountability. Marikana Unresolved is a collection of chapters focused on the unsolved question of accountability for the massacre. It provides a cross-disciplinary account of what really happened, how the event has affected the current South African socio-political landscape and how it has changed public discourse on the mining sector, the labour market and national reconciliation. Written by highly regarded scholars and practitioners, it looks at the massacre from the perspectives of law, philosophy, media, politics, economics and public governance.

The Finger of God

The Finger of God PDF Author: Robert R. Edgar
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813941032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
On the morning of May 24, 1921, a force of eight hundred white policemen and soldiers confronted an African prophet, Enoch Mgijima, and some three thousand of his followers. Called the Israelites, they refused to leave their holy village of Ntabelanga, where they had been gathering since early 1919 to await the end of the world. While the Israelites maintained they were there to pray and worship in peace, the white authorities viewed them as illegally squatting on land that was not theirs. After many months of fruitless negotiations, the South African government sent an armed force to Bulhoek, a village in the Eastern Cape, to expel them. In the event that has come to be known as the Bulhoek massacre, police armed with rifles, machine guns, and cannons killed nearly two hundred Israelites wielding knobkerries, swords, and spears. In The Finger of God, Robert Edgar reveals how and why the Bulhoek massacre occurred. Edgar asks: Why did Mgijima prophesize that the end of the world was imminent, and why did he summon his followers to Ntabelanga? Why did the South African government regard the Israelite encampment as a threat? Examining this clash between a government and a millenial movement, Edgar considers the Bulhoek massacre both as a signal event in South African history and as an example of similar conflicts worldwide.