SHARPVILLE 21.mars 1960 i Sør-Afrika; MARIKANA 16 august 2014 ANCs SHARPVILLE!

Så skriver wikipedia om Sharpville Massakre i 1960: @ http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville-massakren

Sharpeville-massakrenFra Wikipedia, den frie encyklopedi

Sharpeville-massakren fant sted i Sharpeville i Soweto Sør-Afrika i 1960. 21. mars 1960 åpnet sørafrikansk politi ild og drepte 69 PAC medlemmer som demonstrerte mot innføringen av passlover for svarte.

Passlovene innebar en betydelig innskrenking i bevegelsesfriheten for den svarte befolkningen. I ettertid viste det seg at flesteparten av de drepte var skutt i ryggen, og overlevende vitnet på at de var i gang med å flykte da politiet plutselig åpnet ild.

Massakren førte til at en rekke svarte politiske partier og bevegelser i landet, inkludert ANC og PAC ble forbudt. Det utløste også at både ANC og PAC startet væpnede aksjoner og grunnla geriljabevegelser med baser utenfor Sør-Afrika.

Så skriver de om Marikana Massakre i 2014: (kun på engelsk) - @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marikana_miners%27_strike

Marikana miners' strike

Marikana miners' strike, Lonmin StrikeDate10 August—20 September 2012Location

[ Marikana ]

area, close to

[ Rustenburg ]

, South AfricaParticipantsIndependent striking miners

[ National Union of Mineworkers ]

[ Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union ]

[ South African Police Service ]

Mine security

LonminDeaths14 August: 2

12–14 August: approx. 8 (police: 2, miners: 4, security guards: 2)

[ [1] ]

[ [2] ]

16 August: 34 miners (78 miners wounded)

Later before resolution: 2

After 18 September resolution: 1

[ [3] ]

[ Marikana ]

[ Marikana ]

in South Africa

The Marikana miners' strike or Lonmin strike was a wildcat strike at a mine owned by Lonmin in the Marikana area, close to Rustenburg, South Africa in 2012.

The event garnered international attention following a series of violent incidents between the South African Police Service, Lonmin security, the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and strikers themselves, which resulted in the deaths of 44 people, the majority of whom were striking mineworkers killed on 16 August.

At least 78 additional workers were also injured on 16 August.

The total number of injuries during the strike remains unknown.

In addition to the Lonmin strikers, there has been a wave of wildcat strikes across the South African mining sector.

The first incidents of violence were reported to have started on 11 August after NUM leaders opened fire on NUM members who were on strike. Initial reports indicated that it was widely believed that two strikers died that day; however, it later turned out that two strikers were seriously wounded, but not killed, in the shooting by NUM members.

This violence was followed by the death of another eight strikers, police and security personnel who were killed in the next three days.

The shooting incident on 16 August that the press dubbed the Marikana massacre * was the single most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since 1960, and the end of the apartheid era.

The shootings have been described as a massacre in the South African media and have been compared to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960.

The incident also took place on the 25-year anniversary of a nationwide South African miners' strike.[13]

Controversy emerged after it was discovered that most of the victims were shot in the back and many victims were shot far from police lines.

-------------------

* Se bok: * MARIKANA: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer: P. Alexander et al, Bookmarks/ Jacana Media, 2012/2013

En kammerat til meg Rashad Desai har lagat en film el. dokumentær om denne hendelsen. Han beskriver den slik:

FILM NEWS!

"MINERS SHOT DOWN"!

Congrats to

[ Rehad Desai ]

for winning the Right To Know Award at

[ One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival ]

for

[ Miners Shot Down ]

.

@

[ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=535151169935681&set=vb.436695929781206&type=2&theater ]

go to: @

[ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Miners-Shot-Down/436695929781206 ]

[ Miners Shot Down ]

After its world premiere at the One World International Human Rights Documentary Festival in Prague, Miners Shot Down has been announced as the winner of the Right To Know award, which is presented to a film that makes an exceptional contribution to the defence of human rights.

The Václav Havel Jury, which is comprised of human rights advocates, international representatives of the non-profit sector and donors, selected the film from 12 documentaries featured in this category.

The jury made this statement about the film, “Using testimonies, live and archive footage of the tragic unfolding events the filmmaker tells the story through powerful images of miners' protest and the police response.

The film manages to operate on a number of levels: it tells the tale of both individual struggle and tragedy, but also of the reality of life in the Rainbow nation, nearly 20 years after the end of apartheid, where old racial divisions are replaced or translated into dividing lines between rich and poor.

The filmmaker leaves no stone unturned in documenting the existence of slavery and rampant capitalism which is corrupting the state's elites and undermining basic rights”.------------------------------ This is such a quality, important documentary; make sure you see it.

Rehad on winning the "Right To Know Award" at

One World Human Rights Festival.

"This is a small but critical victory for the widows of the slain and the injured and arrested mineworkers who are still charged with murder.

This will strengthen our campaign for justice tremendously it will also assist in the solidarity that the mineworkers strike that is now required having entered its sixth week.

It will greatly assist us to ensure that film travels far and wide.

This is also a small victory for the recognition of SA documentaries which continue to grow from strength to strength.

At a personal level this prize is hugely affirming for our production and post production team.

It will also boost the morale greatly of the outreach team that is aiming to get this film shown and discussed across the breadth of the country, with campaign screenings in the region and wider world."

- Rehad Desai-------------------

En Apell: SOLIDARITET med gruvearbeiderne @ MARIKANA , Sør-Afrika!

Kjære venner og kamerater!

Du kan , eller kanskje ikke , vet om politiet massakren av 36 (minst ) streikende gruvearbeidere @ Marikana i Sør- Afrika * 16. august 2002.

En kamerat av meg , Rehad Desai , har nettopp fullført en helaftens film eller dokumentar av denne hendelsen ( se ovan links) som heter " Gruvearbeidere Skutt Ned" som nettopp har vunnet en premie i Praha, en massakre som fortsatt gjaller og rister selve grunnlaget for demokratiet, styrt av den African National Congress (ANC).

Jeg har bestilt en kopi av videoen , og det skal være med meg i begynnelsen av april de , produsentene , fortell meg .

En offentlig visning av denne filmen vil være en glimrende mulighet for mange til å komme i inngrep med den sørafrikanske problemet før den neste nasjonale valget i Sør- Afrika den 7. mai.

Jeg har et stort problem, i at jeg bor i outback i Norge, i landsbyen Rauland i Vest-Telemark, og jeg er også syk og kan ikke reise ofte fra mitt hjem .

Så , jeg om det kan være en god idé å ta kontakt med noen kamerater i Oslo-området i første omgang men skal vises i andre steder også - kanskje DU kan sette opp/ iversette en lokal komité, eller gjør følgende for å gi filmen en bred visnings :

1 ) Bestill lokale - kanskje @ Litterraturhuset, f. eks. i Oslo på første mai - bare et forslag ! - ( 1ste Mai) .... eller en kino (eller passende arena) i den sentral strøk i DIN område.

2 ) Annonser på nettsteder og i dine presse / media og gi nødvendig informasjon til norsk presse , media osv om denne hendelsen .

Vi kunne holde kontakten via e-post (goolselim@gmail.com) eller mobiltelefon (94103925) .

Dr Selim Gool(bor i Rauland , Vest-Telemark )---------------

Mer Om MARIKANA:

1. Den sjokkerende sammensvergelse bak
2. Marikana gruvearbeidere massakren

Et år etter at Marikana massakren, ser gruvearbeidere 'advokat Jim Nichol på fakta avslørt av henvendelsen.

Historien om oppkjøringen til Marikana massakren er en av samarbeid mellom staten, platina gruveselskapet Lonmin og National Union of gruvearbeidere (NUM).

Hver hadde samme egeninteresse i å bryte den uoffisielle streik ved Marikana. Lonmin kom opp med en strategi for å oppnå det.

Lonmin skrev til minister for gruver, Susan Shabangu.

"Staten bør ta å bære på denne avgjørende delen av økonomien bruke ressurser til rådighet for å resolutt bringe situasjonen under kontroll.

«Politiet og hæren tilstedeværelse må planlegges."

Den NUM, at en gang så mektige forening, er en absolutt skam. Fra første dag organisert det skorpedannelse. Jeg har sett e-poster fra de full tid avslaget sekretærer til Lonmin menneskelige ressurser avdelingen å si: "Du gir transport, vil vi gi arbeiderne."

Noen 3000 gruvearbeidere marsjerte ned til NUM kontorer 11. august, hvor de ble konfrontert med 20 eller 30 tjenestemenn i unionen.

Protesten kom under ild og to gruvearbeidere ble skutt i ryggen og alvorlig skadet da de flyktet.

NUM advokat Karel Tip var ganske fornøyd med å fortelle henvendelsen i sin åpningstale at "en konfrontasjon fulgte mellom demonstrantene og en rekke NUM medlemmer der skytevåpen ble utskrevet.

"Selv om det allerede ut til å være ulike versjoner om denne hendelsen, vil NUM etter hvert føre bevis for at i de tilfeller bruk av skytevåpen ved NUM medlemmer var berettiget."

NUM president Senzeni Zokwana dukket opp på Lonmin kontorer 12. augus.

I dokumenter som jeg har sett, diskuterte han hvordan å bryte streiken.

Minister

Han kom ut av dette møtet og ringte umiddelbart opp justisministeren Nathi Mthethwa på sin mobil. Han fortalte dette til kommisjonen.

Han sa han ønsket hæren og politiet på Marikana fort.

NUM generalsekretær Frans Baleni utstedt en uttalelse dagen etter, 13. august.

"Vi ber om utplassering av en spesiell arbeidsgruppe eller South African National Defence Force å håndtere avgjørende med de kriminelle elementene i Rustenburg og dens omkringliggende gruver," sa det.

Men den virkelige kjernen i organisasjonen mot gruvearbeiderne ble avslørt i e-poster. De forteller deg noe om hvordan staten samarbeider med arbeidsgivere.

Cyril Ramaphosa var en gang en stor mann som ledet en mye mer militant NUM. For de av oss som husker, er det sløying å se ham nå. Han eier 23 prosent av Lonmin og 100 prosent av McDonalds Sør-Afrika.

Ramaphosa fortalte en senior Lonmin regissør som han kalte minster Shabangu, "Jeg fortalte henne at hennes taushet løpet Lonmin var dårlig for henne og regjeringen. Hun sa hun skulle avgi en uttalelse.

"Jeg snakket med Zokwana.

Han og Frans Baleni ønsker å møte meg for å diskutere hva de skal gjøre videre.

Jeg skal snakke med ANC generalsekretær Gwede Mantashe å foreslå de bør gripe inn. "

Direktøren svarte: «Jeg hørte statsråden på radioen i morges. Hun sa hun hadde blitt orientert, og dette var en lønn tvist. Ikke sikker på hvem som har informert henne. "

Han fortsatte med å si: "Dette er ikke å bli karakterisert som en industriell relasjoner saken.

Dette er et tilfelle av sivil uro og kriminelle problemer som ikke kunne løses uten politisk inngripen og trenger situasjonen skal stabiliseres av politiet og hæren. "

Ramaphosa sendt tilbake et par timer senere og sa at han hadde snakket med Shabangu og hun aksepterte det var en kriminell sak.

Han avsluttet, "Hun kommer inn i skapet og vil orientere presidenten". Dette er alt på dagen før massakren.

Shabangu hadde tidligere vært minister for politiet. I 2008 rådet hun politifolk på hvordan de skal takle kriminalitet "Du må drepe drittsekker hvis de truer deg".

Ansvar

Hun gikk på: "Du må ikke bekymre deg om regelverket.

Det er mitt ansvar. "For å få henne til punkt klart hun konkluderte:

« Du har fått våpen, nå bruke dem. Jeg ønsker ingen varselskudd. Du har ett skudd, og det må være en kill shot. "

Lonmin gitt politiet med et hovedkvarter, og banker av skjermer som lar dem se på hva som skjedde med de streikende. Lonmin orienterte politiet to ganger hver dag.

Lonmin gitt brannvesenet og tjenester på dagen for drapet. Lonmin ble leid inn for å gi medisinske tjenester og fengsler. Og Lonmin tilbudt senior sikkerhetsstyrker sitt eget spill gård for en debrief når det hele var over.

Så scenen ble satt. De 800 politifolk var tungt bevæpnet. Hver har en pistol, så var det vannkanoner, granater, helikoptre og pansrede biler.

Men det var også den beryktede R-5 rifler-en dødelig militært våpen som skyter 600 skudd i minuttet.

Så massakren startet.

Da de første gruvearbeiderne løp for å unngå å bli fanget av razor wire de ble skutt ned og 16 ble drept.

Men på en måte hva som skjedde etterpå var enda mer forferdelige. De overlevende ble jaktet ned og henrettet.

At kommisjonen ser vi denne videoen igjen og igjen. Du tror du vil bli vant til det, men gjør du ikke. Politiet drepte 34 totalt og såret en annen 78.

Da de arresterte 270 gruvearbeidere og siktet dem med drapet. Og politiet hevdet dette var selvforsvar.

Jim har representert gruvearbeidere gratis på Farlam henvendelse.

Kommisjonen har pågått i åtte måneder og vil sannsynligvis gå på en ny seks …

@ http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art/34117/The+shocking+collusion+behind+the+Marikana+miners+massacre

----

Arbeidernes opprør i Sør-Afrika er en direkte utfordring til ANC

av Rehad Desai, Marikana Support Campaign

Sør-Afrika går gjennom et opprør. Det startet med den seirende streik ved Marikana og en bølge av ville streiker

i gruvene.

Det har satt den langsiktige fremtiden for styrende African National Congress (ANC) i tvil.

Platina sjefer tjener 230 ganger gjennomsnittet for en gruvearbeider.

Det er det vell av en ny svart elite som skylder sin

posisjonere til ANC.

ANC vokste som en motstandsbevegelse mot rasistisk redsel for apartheid, men siden den kom inn på kontoret i 1994

det har blitt et prosjekt for å de-racialise kapitalismen i Sør-Afrika.

Etter 18 år med ANC regel det har vært noen forbedringer for fattige mennesker i de etablerte industriområder

Til byer og store tettsteder.

Men nye gruver blir åpnet opp i de rurale områdene som historisk har fungert som arbeidskraft reserves.Rustenberg er den raskest voksende by, midt i platina bransjen.

Det har sett 38 uformelle bosettinger vokser

i løpet av de siste ti årene.

Platinum er kjernen i Sør-Afrikas vekst. Det bringer i 60 prosent av utenlandske inntekter.

Sjefene lånt tungt å ekspandere i boom år. Men nå er de bekymret for den økonomiske nedgangen. Vi er

fortalte vi må ikke utfordre sin fortjeneste.

Under apartheid Sør-Afrika bygget opp en lav lønn økonomi med en tett policed arbeidsstyrke.

Når apartheid brøt sammen, vant gruve husene en forsikring fra ANC at NUM ville holde lønningene

"Realistisk".

Nå unge arbeidere i gruvene har brutt fra NUM i sine titusener.

Over 150 000 var involvert i uoffisielle streiker fjor.

En ny generasjon av arbeideren ledere har dukket opp, frisk med ideer ofte formet av ANC Youth League og

Julius Malema (se ovenfor). De er fast bestemt på å se økonomisk frihet i livet.

Streikene gått utover gruvene til de andre store bataljoner av den sørafrikanske arbeiderklassen. De var

uoffisiell fordi unionen byråkratier i Cosatu, Sør-Afrikas HiT, ikke støtte dem.

Dette presset nedenfra gjort ting veldig ubehagelig for den langsiktige allianse av ANC, Cosatu og

Sørafrikanske kommunistpartiet (SACP), som har holdt tilbake arbeidernes krav til år.

De tillitsvalgte byråkratier ikke klarer å representere sine arbeidere, så arbeiderne har måttet bryte for å flytte

fremover. Ting beveger seg raskt som nye fagforeninger utvikle nye strategier, men også nye byråkratier.

I år vil mange arbeidstakere vil sette inn for dobbel lønn deres. Det er en direkte utfordring til den herskende klassen og ANC.

I løpet av de neste månedene vil vi se 200.000 eller 300.000 gruvearbeidere i platina og gull sektorer ut på samme

tid.

Dette er grunnen til at SACP er etter Cosatu leder Zwelinzima Vavi. Han har nok fornuftig å vite at han kan bare holde

Cosatu sammen hvis han legger ut en olivengren til de radikaliserte arbeidere.

Han tvang en avtale for å stoppe sjefene strie 30.000 gruvearbeidere under en uoffisiell streik ved Amplats.

Men arbeiderne kjemper-og de vil trenge internasjonal støtte mer enn noen gang.

@

[ http://links.org.au/node/2997 ]

South Africa: The massacre of our illusions … and the seeds of something new

By Leonard Gentle, director of the International Labour Research and Information Group (South Africa)

August 23, 2012 -- ILRIG --

The story of Marikana has so far been painted shallowly as an inter-union spat. In the first few days after the August16 police killing of 34 striking mineworkers, employed by the Lonmin mining corporation,

- 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, African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, stepped forward as if scripted, and promptly lent credibility to those warnings.

So South African President Jacob 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.

The broader platinum-mining belt has been home to new upsurges of struggles over the last five years – from the working-class community activists of Merafong and Khutsong

– who drove the then African National Congress (ANC) chairperson Terror Lekota out

– to the striking workers of Angloplat, Implat and now Lonmin.

These struggles – including the nationwide "service delivery" revolts – are the signs that a new movement is being forged despite the state violence that killed Andries Tatane and massacred the Lonmin workers.

Rather than just howl our outrage it is time to take sides and offer our support.

Marikana now joins the ranks of the Sharpeville and Boipatong massacres in the odious history of a method of capital accumulation based on violence.

The ANC’s moral legitimacy as the leading force in the struggle for democracy has now been irrevocably squandered and the struggle for social justice has now passed on to a whole new working class

– including the workers at Lonmin who went on strike

– who are outside the Tripartite Alliance and its constituent parts [ANC, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African Communist Party (SACP)].

In this sense, after Marikana, things will never be the same again.

First, the killings mark the end of the illusion of a moral high ground occupied by the ANC and the completion of its transformation into the governing party of big capital.

For some while now the ANC could trade on its liberation credits in arguing that all criticism came from quarters who were trying to defend white privilege.

The Democratic Alliance (DA), of course, was perfect to be cast in this role because it always attacked the ANC for not being business-friendly enough.

NGOs who ramped up the criticism of the ANC’s attacks on the media or freedom of speech could be dismissed as “foreign funded” or having darkly hidden agendas or being the tools of the liberal onslaught on majority rule.

But Marikana was an attack on workers in defence of white privilege – specifically the mining house, Lonmin.

Although it is partly owned by one of Cyril Ramaphosa's companies, its major shareholders include British investors and ex-South African (and ex-Eskom) Mick Davis's Xstrata. [Cyril Ramaphosa was once a leading anti-apartheid activist and is a former leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).]

Mining company profits

In this the ANC steps squarely into the shoes of its predecessors – apartheid's Nationalist Party and Smuts' South African Party – acting to secure the profits of mining capital through violence. This was Bulhoek and Bondelswaarts massacres all over again.

This was the setting up of forced recruitment over southern Africa leading to the dreaded migrant labour system, the compounds and the dompas (black South Africans had to carry passbooks). This was the stuff of Hugh Masekela's "Stimela" (Coal train).

Always successive governments did what was necessary to ensure a cheap, divided and compliant labour force for the mines.

Lonim epitomises the make-up of the new elite in South Africa – old white capital garnished with a sprinkling of politically connected blacks in the name of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE).

Second, the strike and the massacre mark a turning point in the liberation alliance around the ANC – particularly COSATU.

Whereas the community and youth wings of what was called the Mass Democratic Movement of the 1980s and 1990s

– specifically the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) and the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) (remember the United Democratic Front was disbanded by the ANC)

– became disgraced by their association with corrupt councillors and eclipsed by the service delivery revolts (and the ANCYL became a home for the tenderpreneurs), COSATU's moral authority was enhanced after 1994.

Within what is called “civil society” COSATU continued to be a moral voice.

So anyone who had a campaign – whether challenging the limitations on media freedom or fighting for renewable energy – sought out COSATU as a partner.

This moral authority came because COSATU was simply the most organised voice among the working class.

Today COSATU’s links with the working class is only a very tenuous one.

It is almost intuitive that we consider the notion of a worker as someone working for a clearly defined employer, on a full-time basis, in a large factory, mine or supermarket.

Indeed classical industrial trade unions were forged by workers in large factories and plants and industrial areas.

This was the case in many countries where such unions won the right to organise and bargain collectively – and was also the case in South Africa, when a new wave of large unions formed industrial unions after 1973's Durban strikes.

And going along with this structure of work were the residential spaces of townships.

From the 1950s in South Africa apartheid increasingly came to accept the de facto existence of a settled urban proletariat – which intensified from the early 1970s – and built the matchbox brick houses in the townships of the apartheid era: the Sowetos, Kathlehongs, Tembisas and the like.

So the working class was organised by capitalism into large industrial sites and brick houses in large sprawling townships.

Neoliberal phase of capitalism

The neoliberal phase of capitalism – since the 1980s – has begun to change even this.

Neoliberalism has not only been about privatisation and global speculation. It has also been about restructuring work and home.

Today casualisation, outsourcing, homework, labour brokers and other forms of informalisation or externalisation have become the dominant form of work – when work is available at all – and homelessness and shackdwelling the mode of existence of the working class.

The latter is in indirect proportion to the withdrawal of the state from providing housing and the services associated with formal housing.

Twenty years ago the underground mineworkers of Lonmin would have lived in a compound provided by and policed by the company. Today the rock drill workers live in a shanty town nearby the mine.

Also mining itself has changed.

Much of the serious hard work underground is now done by workers sourced from labour brokers.

These are the most exploited and insecure workers who work the longest hours and most flexible arrangements. It is even possible today to own a mine and not work it yourself but to contract engineering firms like Murray and Roberts to do the mining for you.

Into the mix are so-called “illegal miners”, who literally mine with spades and their own dynamite and then sell on to middle men who themselves have links to big businesses.

Lonmin has exploited these divisions – exacerbated by the old mining industry strategy of recruiting along tribal and regional divisions – the drill workers at Lonmin were known as Xhosas railed in from the Eastern Cape into an area which is largely Tswana speaking – to heighten exploitation at the coalface of drill workers while making cosy deals with the more skilled and white-collar National Uunion of Mineworkers members.

Add to this the toxic mix of mine security, barbed-wire enclosures and informal housing – identified by researchers such as Benchmarks and a picture of institutionalised violence emerges.

By way of contrast the dominant trade unions in South Africa have largely moved up upscale – towards white-collar workers and away from this majority.

Today the large COSATU affiliates are public-sector white-collar workers – the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) and the unions among white-collar workers in the state-owned utilities – Telkom and Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) and Transnet and the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU).

The lower level blue-collar workers are now in labour brokers and in services that have been completely outsourced – like cleaning, security etc, so they do not fall within the bargaining units of the Public Sector Bargaining Council.

The AMCU

The Lonmin strike was second in the last three months to hit the platinum sector. It was preceded by a strike at Implat (and before that at Angloplat).

All involved the new Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) as workers sought an outlet for their frustrations. In this sense the recent strike has been simmering for years.

The mining trade journal Miningmix published this story in 2009:

“One such issue was an agreement signed between the NUM and Implats in 2007, which stipulated a 50% plus one member threshold for recognition – practically making Implats a closed shop where minority unions have no rights. That removed any competition and gave the NUM a monopoly in South Africa’s largest single mining complex. Secondly, and most importantly, a gradual change had taken place in the profile of the NUM membership over the last 15 years; one that nobody had taken notice of. The NUM was originally borne out of the lowest job categories of South African mineworkers, mainly from gold mines. More than 60% of its members were foreigners, mostly illiterate migrant labourers.

Nowadays that number has dropped to below 40%. On the other hand, an increasing portion of the NUM’s membership comes from what can be described as white-collar mining staff, who had previously been represented exclusively by Solidarity and UASA. The local NUM structures in Rustenburg, like the branch office bearers and the shop stewards, are dominated by these skilled, higher level workers. They are literate, well spoken and wealthy compared to the general workers and machine operators underground. For instance, there are two NUM branches at Implats – North and South. And the chairpersons at both these branches were beneficiaries of the 18% bonus that sparked the strike. During wage negotiations in September 2011 Implats wanted to give rock-drill operators a higher increase than the rest of the workforce, but a committee of NUM shop stewards demanded the money be split among the whole workforce. Needless to say, there wasn’t a single rock-drill operator on the shop stewards’ committee.”

So while the NUM remains the largest affiliate of COSATU, it is moving on from the union of coalface workers, to a union of white-collar above-ground technicians.

It is these developments within the NUM that led to the formation of the breakaway union – the AMCU. Whatever the credentials of AMCU, its emergence is a direct challenge to the hegemony of NUM and of COSATU.

As such the federation has embarked on a disgraceful campaign of slandering the striking workers and their union.

In this they have been joined by the media..

With the notable exception of the Cape Times, which gave space to stories of family members of the dead workers and editorialised on the police and Lonmin's practises, the media's culpability in demonising the striking workers has been equally reprehensible.

In addition to only quoting NUM sources for information of the strike or focusing on Julius Malema’s opportunism, there has been no attempt to dig beneath the idea of manipulated workers and inter-union rivalry.

In general the media all painted the rock drillers as uneducated, Basotho or Eastern Cape Xhosas etc., while flogging the idea of an increase to R12,500 as “unreasonable” (nobody has even bothered to check what rock drill workers actually earn at present).

Then there is the notion that workers went to AMCU because they were promised R12,500.

This fiction is repeated endlessly by the media. Journalists are of course happy to source this from (unnamed) NUM sources and are simply too lazy to check with the striking workers themselves, or from the AMCU, and do not even observe the most basic principle of saying this is an unsubstantiated allegation coming from NUM sources.

The slander here is that workers are so open to manipulation that they will believe any empty promises.

This plays to the prejudice – repeated by Frans Baleni of NUM from his Nyala(armoured car) – that rock drill workers are ignorant and uneducated – and it bolsters the idea that AMCU is some kind of Slick Willy operation which must take responsibility for the massacre.

Anyone with any experience of organising knows that trade unions don’t come to workers like insurance salespeople or vendors of encyclopaedias.

In the main, workers form their own committees and then send a delegation to the union office demanding that an organiser come and sign them up ... or simply down tools forcing their employer to contact a union organiser to come and talk.

Nor is any strike decision, let alone such a strike such as this one – unprotected, under the umbrella of an unrecognised union, in a workplace with mine security and where the workers themselves are far from home in a strange region – ever taken lightly.

Wildcat strikes are probably the most conscious acts of sacrifice and courage that anyone can take, driven by anger and desperation and involving the full knowledge that you could lose you job and your family’s livelihood.

In normal times trade unions can be as much a huge bureaucratic machine as a corporation or a state department with negotiations conducted by small teams of no more that a dozen or so far from the thousands of rank-and-file members.

Strikes change all that.

Suddenly unions are forced to be conduits of their members’ aspirations.

Whatever the merits of the AMCU as a democratic union or as one with any vision of transformation; whatever the involvement of Themba Godi and whoever else, the workers of Marikana made their choices – to become members of the AMCU and risk everything

– including their lives – for a better future.

For that we owe them more than just pious sympathy. There is a job of mobilisation and movement building to be done.

Almost 40 years ago – in 1973 – workers from companies like the Frame Group in Durban came out in a series of wildcat – then really illegal – strikes. Now this event as celebrated by everyone as part of the revival of the anti-apartheid mass movement and the birth of a new phase of radical trade unionism, which culminated in the formation of COSATU in 1985.

But in 1973 the media highlighted the threat of violence and called for the restoration of law and order. The apartheid state could not respond with the kind of killings that happened at Marikana because the strikes were in industrial areas around Durban,

- but they invoked the same idea of ignorant misled workers (then they were seen as ignorant Zulus) and had homeland leader Mangosutho Buthelezi send his emissary, Barney Dladla, to talk to the workers.

While in exile the South African Communist Party (SACP) questioned the bona fides of the strikes, invoking the involvement of Buthelezi to perpetuate the fiction of "ignorant Zulus", because they were not called for or led by the official liberation aligned union body – the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU).

Some in SACTU–SACP circles (like Blade Nzimande today) raised the spectre of liberals and CIA involvement in the new workers' formations with an agenda to “sideline the liberation movement”.

This separation of the ANC and its allies from the early labour movement was to lead to the divisions between the “workerist unions” (independent) and the “populist unions” in the labour movement and was to continue within COSATU until the period of the political negotiations when there was more or less an agreement that the ANC would take centre stage.

How easily people forget when workers forge new movements today.

Current struggles

For a long time now the ongoing service delivery revolts throughout the country have failed to register on the laptops and blackberries of the chattering classes. This is because of the social – and even geographic distance – of the middle classes to the new working classes and the poor.

Now the sight of the police shooting striking workers on TV has brought the real world of current struggles right into the lounges and bedrooms of public opinion.

According to statistics supplied by the University of Witswatersrand’s Peter Alexander:

In 2010/11 there was a record number of crowd management incidents unrest and peaceful), and the final data for 2011/12 are likely to show an even higher figure. Already, the number of gatherings involving unrest was higher in 2011/12 than any previous year. During the last three years, 2009-12, there has been an average of 2.9 unrest incidents per day. This is an increase of 40 percent over the average of 2.1 unrest incidents per day recorded for 2004-09. The statistics show that what has been called the Rebellion of the Poor has intensified over the past three years.

This kind of “spontaneous” revolt is now also extending to the industrial sphere – witness the unprotected strikes in the platinum mines at AngloPlat, Implats and now Lonmin.

So far the strikers have stood form not only against the police, and Lonmin threatening dismissal, but also against the media labelling their strike “illegal” (strikes are not illegal in South Africa, they are only protected or unprotected) and the NUM and COSATU rallying behind their ally – the ruling ANC

– to stigmatise the strikers and their union as “paid by BHP Billiton and/or the Chamber of Mines" (why either of these would pay to form a striking, volatile union rather than a sweetheart union like NUM who sits in all their bargaining chambers and acts to respect agreements, makes no sense.But some people choose to believe this nonsense).

The SACP even goes on to call on Zuma’s Commission of Enquiry to investigat the AMCU and the possibility that it is being financed by business interests to break NUM (that vanguard of the working class) – this from the SACP cabinet minister, Blade Nzimande, who wines and dines with big business every day of his life.

In the midst of our outrage at this brutality let us acknowledge that a new movement is emerging. Such early signs do not as yet indicate something grand and well organised.

Movements are notoriously messy and difficult to assign to some kind of predetermined ideological box.

We do not know what ups and downs people will go through but when the seeds of a new movement are being planted it is time to ask what the rest of us can do to help it to grow.