LITMIR.BIZ

      1

      Introduction

      Encounters in Marikana

      Luke Sinwell, Thapelo Lekgowa, Botsang Mmope and Bongani Xezwi

      On a blistering hot afternoon in Marikana just a few weeks after the brutal massacre of 16 August 2012, 10,000 striking workers carrying knobkerries and tall whips waited patiently in the sun. Four of us, researchers from the University of Johannesburg, found ourselves in the midst of the crowd. The mood was unclear, but seemed volatile. The workers were singing ‘makuliwe’ [isiXhosa for ‘let there be a fight’]. We felt the force of the movement. One wrong move by the police could shift this peaceful moment into yet another bloody affair.

      Workers had started moving in tight-knit battalions, using these formations to protect themselves, especially the strike’s leaders. In what has become an emblemic feature of this workers’ resistance movement, the group stopped and kneeled about 20 metres from the police vehicles. At this point five madoda [men] stepped forward to negotiate. As the workers explained, ‘we can all sing, but we can’t all speak at once’. The five madoda are the voices of the masses behind them, and they could be alternated at any time depending on negotiating capabilities and who they were speaking with. Their plan was to head for the smelter (where the platinum is processed) demanding that it shut down its operations. At this stage, 95 per cent of workers at Lonmin, the third largest platinum mine in the world, were on strike. The smelter was the only unit still operating and the marchers wanted the workers there to join the strike.

      Marikana was in effect witnessing an undeclared state of emergency. Police and Lonmin were on one side, and the workers were on the other. Over the next week, a thousand troops were deployed and orders were given by the police that people must stay off the streets. On this particular day, 12 September, the carloads of local and international media that had been camping out at the scene sped off quickly. It seemed like an evacuation. We wondered if we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two of us thought it was unsafe and wanted to flee; the other two felt we should stay and observe. In the end we didn’t have much choice. Suddenly the mass of workers kneeled to the ground. There was no space to drive our car away, so we too kneeled down. We learned later from the workers that this was to ensure a calm and quiet environment for the five madodas’ negotiations. The workers were also very cautious. They crouched with their weapons down and to their side, as they did on 16 August when they were attacked. At the same time, they were ready to pick them up and fight, but only if it was necessary to defend themselves.

      There was no academic training that could have prepared us for our experiences that day, or for others that came before and after. Each one offered us new challenges as researchers and, more importantly, as human beings. As we learned more about this merciless and bloody massacre through the workers’ voices and eye-witness accounts, we came to the realisation that this was not only preventable, it had been planned in advance. In contrast to the dominant view put forth by the media, government and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), which suggests that the workers were an unruly and dangerous mob who needed to be controlled and contained, we learned that the workers were, and remain, disciplined, peaceful and very well organised. The consciousness of South Africans and others has been scarred by media footage that makes it seem like strikers were charging the police, and defending themselves against savages. As several of the eye-witness accounts of workers who were on the mountain during the massacre testify, and as Peter Alexander recounts, workers were not on the offensive, but were literally running for their lives on 16 August. Some were even shot in the back or in the back of the head while running away.

      This is the first book that attempts to understand the massacre on 16 August. It can only provide a starting point for future scholarship and it does not attempt to explain what happened from the perspective of all stakeholders involved. Moreover, when framing the raw interviews that follow, we have extended beyond superficial journalistic accounts, probing into the experiences and lives of the miners. This has only been possible because of a concern to build relationships of trust in a tumultuous, albeit very short, period of time. Too often, researchers go into a locality in order to obtain information from respondents but have limited commitment and never return. This can create a situation in which locals are sceptical of future researchers and refuse to share what they know. We have sustained relationships with many of the workers and have, in small but certain ways, acted in solidarity with them. Of course it would be naïve to assume that this limited engagement over only a few months could produce ethnographic depth, but we hope that it will be the start of a longer engagement.

      While the primary focus of our research and interviews was the men who were on the mountain, our most hard-hitting and heart-wrenching experiences were often with the family members, wives and children of the victims. Interviews and other forms of research can take an emotional toll both on the respondent and on the researchers. For Thapelo and Luke, our most painful experience was visiting the families of the deceased in the Eastern Cape, where we began creating biographies of the 34 men who were killed. We attended two funerals and visited seven families in total; entering hut upon hut, seeing family upon family in their rural villages in the poorest province of South Africa, from which most of the workers have migrated. The families were in their mourning period, but still they opened their hearts to us.

      We watched six young children playing—none of them had any idea that their father was dead. Rather, as is the tradition, they were told ‘Daddy won’t be coming home anymore’. It is only later in life that they will learn that their father was killed by police for the ‘crime’ of fighting for his right to a better life. To these children things were just normal. We felt helpless when the families asked us for immediate help. People poured out their problems and told us what the solution might be, hoping that we would pass on the message to the powers that be. The words are still haunting us: ‘Go ask government and Lonmin who will be feeding these kids.’

      We stayed late one night in Marikana West, the township where many workers live. Bongani and Luke were interviewing one of the workers who had been arrested on 16 August, but he did not want to give us information without the approval of his lawyer. He asked us to walk, through the dark and empty streets, to his home where he had the business card of his lawyer. When we arrived we realised that he was a backyard dweller who was staying in a tiny zinc shack. As we were about to get to his door his wife came out, very distressed, and stated quietly but firmly and in an angry tone: ‘My brothers, get inside! I want to know why are you here?’ As we went inside she demanded proof of our identities. She then explained:

      I am asking because there are people around our area who call themselves researchers. Who come to our houses and take our husbands for an interview. And that will be the end of us seeing our husbands. That thing happened in Bop [Western Platinum] Mine when a husband was taken by interviewers and he was never found.

      We

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