On this day in 2012, the Marikana Massacre took place when South African police fired on striking workers, killing 34 and injuring 76 in the most lethal use of force by the state in half a century.
The shootings have been compared to the infamous Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, when police fired on a crowd of anti-Pass Law protesters, killing 69 people, including 10 children. The Marikana Massacre took place on the 25-year anniversary of a nationwide strike by over 300,000 South African workers.
On August 10th, miners had initiated a wildcat strike at a site owned by Lonmin in the Marikana area, close to Rustenburg, South Africa. Although ten people (mostly workers) had been killed before August 16th, it was on that day that an elite force from the South African Police Service fired into a crowd of strikers with rifles, killing 34 and injuring 76.
After surveying the aftermath of the violence, photojournalist Greg Marinovich concluded that “[it is clear] that heavily armed police hunted down and killed the miners in cold blood.”
Following the massacre, a massive wave of strikes occurred across the South African mining sector - in early October, analysts estimated that approximately 75,000 miners were on strike from various gold and platinum mines and companies across South Africa, most of them doing so illegally.
A year after the Marikana Massacre, author Benjamin Fogel wrote “Perhaps the most important lesson of Marikana is that the state can gun down dozens of black workers with little or no backlash from ‘civil society’, the judicial system or from within the institutions that supposedly form the bedrock of democracy.”
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Update: discomfort continues, swelling continues, no real pain. Still on the fence about going to the doctor. On one hand, staying here would involve doing some more walking in about 2 hours, on the other hand, I’d have to wake up both my boss and my ride in the middle of the night if I clock out and go to the doctor now.
If going to the doctor will hit you hard financially, sounds like you should just go home, rest, and take care of your ankle until it’s healed enough. Or re-evaluate if you need to go to the doctors tomorrow if it gets worse
No matter what you do with regards to the doctor I think you definitely go home and sit/lie down
Well, walking on it seems to have mitigated some of the discomfort actually. I’ll try to keep that to a minimum, but I’m pretty sure it’s basically fine.
I think you should see a doctor anyway, at least whenever you have time
You can sometimes find broken foot boots at thrift shops if you’ve got any minions to send to look. And a fair number of people have them in the closet, along with crutches. Might be worth asking around.
You need to stay off it or wear a brace for a while. Any movement you can do that’s non painful will be helpful. You’ll recover but don’t want to exacerbate the injury.