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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I get one egregious instance of like hate comments/verbal attacks per week and idk if my country (not US) is just worse than usual or if shit has become worse. I am not sure how long staying here would be safe. I have lost most hope in political change around here. Too many social climbers for some reason in lefty groups (anyones that are not a cult) and nobody takes trans women serious around here anyway, so it’s not like I could do much, besides most trans activists are pretty fucking liberal with a red paint coat, I felt.
Next ten years will be fine probably, but I get the feeling if I am not ready to piss off when bad things start happening, I am fucked
I have survived one horrid group though, so maybe I am being overly negative, idk, even the better ones are marginal and very much without a plan except “protest, then more protest, then somehow results”
You say “most trans activists are pretty fucking liberal with a red paint coat” but isnt that kind of true for basically most of the entire western left ? Many people that say they are leftwing are just people that want free healthcare and legalized weed and some minor labor protections etc.