BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : THE SOUTH AFRICAN MINERS MASSACRE RAISES THE GHOSTS OF APARTHEID : WE THOUGHT WE GOT RID OF WHITE AFRICANA ONLY TO INSTALL BLACK AFRICANA :

                                BLACK                     SOCIAL                 HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     The South African miners' massacre raises the ghosts of apartheid - and fears for South Africa's future

                        

As someone with Coloured South African heritage, I am acutely aware of the human suffering borne out in the elegiac images of the apartheid-era Sharpeville, Soweto and Athlone Trojan Horse massacres which punctuated my childhood, albeit from afar.

Such nauseating images of horrific Afrikaaner police brutality, of lacerating sjambok whips and guns employed with impunity against defenceless African and Coloured students and old women, were tragically routine during the days of that pernicious and much-loathed regime.

So to see the horrendous video footage of the massacre of South African miners last Thursday, when police fatally wounded 34 striking miners at the Marikana platinum mine outside Johannesburg and injured countless others, really hit home hard and provoked some serious soul-searching.

Aftermath: South African protesters lie motionless on the ground as heavily armed police officers check them at the Lonmin Platinum Mine near Rustenburg, South Africa

Taking cover: Protesting miners can be seen cowering within the gun sights of an police officer. More than 30 people are reported to have been killed

Appalling scenes of the bloodshed have been televised to both national and international outcry, yet the sight of armed police mowing down African protesters is sadly something of a déjà vu for this troubled country. Watching the footage online is more reminiscent of a scene from Rambo or The Expendables than a TV news report, which is what makes this case all the more unsettling, not to mention stomach-churning.

In possibly the worst tragedy since the end of apartheid, police responded with full and unstinting force after some 3,000 striking miners, gathered on a rocky outcrop, apparently ignored an ultimatum to lay down their machetes, spears and clubs. First, the police tried to disperse the crowd with water cannons, before firing volleys of stun grenades and tear gas. But scores of miners appear to have charged out of the bush towards a line of officers. The police duly opened fire with rifles and handguns. The police claim the miners fired first, but irrespective of who initiated the confrontation, such horrendous loss of life is wholly unacceptable and the police's decision to use live ammunition must be questioned.

This time the racial composition of the police was mixed, with both white and black officers responsible for the shooting. Not that this in any way makes their actions any more palatable - a racially mixed police massacre is still a massacre, irrespective of the melanin quotient of those doing the massacring.

  

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Tensions between rival trade unions, the NUM and the AMCU, have done much to contribute to the highly-charged backdrop to this incident, which will undoubtedly have huge political ramifications. The miners belonging to the AMCU were striking for increased pay. Talk of a potential political cover-up is also rife, and cabinet ministers have been appointed to the commission of enquiry. This in itself will do little to engender much-needed faith in the government, its objectivity and impartiality at a time of such national crisis.

In all honesty, this disgraceful blight on an already massively besmirched national reputation could and should have been avoided. It will doubtless wreak havoc with the image South Africa wants to portray on the international stage: that of a country freed from the shackles of apartheid and at last healing from its painfully violent and fractured past.

Many commentators seem to fear this incident is indicative of a new cycle of state repression. I do not think this is idle scaremongering, but a legitimate concern about the direction the country is now taking. Only last year, draconian press restrictions were imposed by the government in an effort to crack down on dissenting media voices. Now this even more draconian demonstration of martial force by the police shows their commitment to an uncompromising stance.

President Zuma has just ordered a period of national mourning for the miners, beginning today. But he is widely (and not unfairly) perceived to be an ineffectual leader who has done little to help the situation. Traditionally, he is far more concerned with tending to the needs of his harem and spouting offensive mumbo jumbo about the efficacy of post-coital showering in reducing the risk of HIV transmission than he is with the good of his own people, most of whom are not much tangibly better off than they were under apartheid.

Meanwhile Julius Malema, the firebrand ANC youth leader expelled from the party for his radical stances, lost no time in addressing the miners with his customary brand of inflammatory oratorical bombast. He has been accused of callously trying to hijack the miners’ grief for his own political ends, namely toppling Zuma and getting back into the ANC.

Although 34 striking miners have been brutally killed, Lonmin, the London-listed company which owns the mine and is the world’s third largest platinum producer, has issued an ultimatum to the miners saying that the survivors must return to work or be sacked. Simon Scott, Lonmin's acting chief executive, is reported to have said: "We have to rebuild the Lonmin brand, rebuild the platinum brand and brand South Africa." – a statement which, while true, does not exactly hint at an outpouring of compassion for the suffering of the bereaved and their families.

It is fair to assert that South Africa is a nation in turmoil, perennially bedevilled by the psychological scars of its past, and beset with a plethora of pressing socio-economic problems which those in power have spectacularly failed to rectify. On balance, things do not augur well for the Rainbow Nation. The fears of a descent into internecine violence and even more bloodshed which plagued South Africa in its transitional, post-apartheid phase were to some degree allayed, but now all of a sudden seem very real once again.

Sadly, all the usual South African ingredients are present in this latest tragedy. Rapacious capitalists callously exploiting the indigenous workforce and caring more about their profit margins than the loss of human life, consummate political one-upmanship and Machiavellian posturing from weak, deeply flawed politicians, heinous police brutality and sickening levels of violence. The old South Africa is still present here on so many levels. Despite the colour of some of those doing the oppressing and the grand-standing, one could legitimately ask what has really changed since Mandela came to power in 1994.

There is, it seems to me, an almost crushing inevitability about the vicissitudes befalling the new South Africa, as human nature reveals itself (somewhat unsurprisingly, it must be said) to be wholly post-racial in its greed, venality, bloodlust and egotism. The poisoned chalice that the ANC were handed in 1994, after decades of oppression and injustice by white minority rule, does not excuse the fact that the current leaders are almost as despotic, corrupt and incompetent as those they had good reason to despise and who kept them in subjection under apartheid.

The much-vaunted new South Africa – a hallowed repository of earnest hope and a projection of so many people’s noble dreams – now seems to be a searing case of plus ca change, plus c’est la même chose.

Lord Acton’s famous adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely seems most apposite here. As painful as it is to accept, especially for those who ardently wanted to believe in a new country extirpating the evils of the old, the stark truth is that power is power, regardless of who has it, and that the consequences of its abuse are the same, regardless of whether the abuser is white or black, capitalist or communist.