There are a number of ingredients that made the Marikana shooting possible. Viewed in isolation they seem insignificant but put them together, it become clear that South Africa is building, not a tinderbox, but a trainload of dynamite.
1. A culture of violence
South Africa has a reputation of being one of the most violent countries in the world, being superseded only by countries where uncontrollable drug cartels rule the roost such as Mexico. Even the most minor disputes can lead to fights with very dangerous weapons with guns, knives and broken bottles being favourites.
Of late violent protests have become the order of the day. Police often tag along powerless to stop or control the protestors who will be smashing things as they go along.
People are often allowed to carry very dangerous weapons such as spears, pangas and even guns in very volatile situations. Usually this is allowed in the name of tradition. There is nothing wrong with carrying traditional weapons provided there is no threat of them being used to commit crimes.
The protesters often act with impunity with the full knowledge that the police rarely, if at all, follow up on acts of wanton violence during protests.
The right to protest is virtually equated to a right to be violent. Violence be-gets violence and eventually the state will get tough.
2. Uncaring management
The white dominated middle and top management of mines continue to see nothing wrong with black workers having standards of living worse than that of their pet dogs.
Pictures of a majestic mine infrastructure rising out of the earth, but surrounded by squalid shacks clearly suggests there is something seriously wrong with the mentality of the people running the mine. How can one drive through the squalor regularly and fail to notice there is something seriously amiss with the contrast in fortunes.
If anyone thought South Africa's problems were over with the advent of democracy in 1994 they better think again. While the perception of inequality persists, the main problem of apartheid (foisted inequality) remains. In South Africa today inequality is not a perception but a reality.
The people and communities who benefited hugely from past racist policies are in a huge rush to absolve themselves of any responsibility and dump it on the young democratic system. However the genes of apartheid are still very much evident in the inequity that bedevils South Africa. Some honest soul searching and intelligent contribution towards equalising society in South Africa is needed from everyone.
The rising black middle class are so happy at being co-opted into the system that they quickly forget about their poverty stricken colleagues. Most of them don't have a vision beyond extravagant lifestyles of fast cars, flashy clothes and women without a second thought for where they came from.
They do not give back or contribute to the communities that nurtured them.
3. Militant unionism
Militancy often demands impossible results now. It is often devoid of strategy and long term vision. I remember during the hey days of militant student unionism at the University of Zimbabwe everything that was demanded was demanded 'as of yesterday'.
In the end what is achieved by such militancy is for the whole thing to look unreasonable and foolish. In this case a more than 300% increase in salaries was demanded. Made against a backdrop of depressed platinum prices on the world market and some mines even going under and ceasing operations, such a demand is obviously unreasonable.
It exposes a worrying lack of vision and strategic depth in the leadership of the unions. Typically unions with such short-sighted militancy rarely achieve long term improvements in the fortunes of their members.
Unions need to realise that they are no longer fighting the system but are now part of the system. As such militant tactics will get little results. What is needed now is careful in-depth research coupled with articulate presentation of viewpoints. Know your facts, and know how to present them.
4. Semi literate, or illiterate workers
One would not like to blame the educational condition of the workers themselves, but certain things won't make sense unless that is also taken into account. For example the decision to charge heavily armed police with mainly pangas can never be explained by bravery.
It is extremely difficult to apply the word 'clever' to this scenario. If the workers had been better educated and better able to reason logically, I do not think they would have embarked on such a mission of such jaw-dropping dumbness.
5. Poorly trained and hesitant police
One policeman was shooting from behind the front line of standing officers. The officer closest to his line of fire was screaming 'Cease fire! Cease fire!' while doing his best to melt into the side of a squad car against which he was leaning. The shooter loosed a few more bursts of automatic fire, before loudly grunting 'Shoot you!' directed at the miners many of whom were now lifeless heaps on the ground.
It was pure luck that the police did not shoot each other in the back.
Clearly worried about being equated to the apartheid police force, the SAPS were hesitent to take decisive action to diffuse the situation early and when they did they chose the wrong moment and the wrong tactics. It would have been less bloody to raid the hostels at night, arrest the leaders and confiscate weapons room by room.
It seems they are beholden to politicians who are afraid of being seen to treat the people the same way the apartheid oppressors did.
There was also a clear lack of intelligence operations in the whole mining strike saga. With 10 people already killed, intelligence operatives should have taken a lead role in identifying the most militant and making sure they were prevented from escalating the situation - as eventually happened.
6. Opportunistic politicians
Hardly had the dust settled and the blood dried, when a stream of opportunistic politicians started trekking to Marikana. One of them was Julius Malema who just couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw a few barbs at his arch-nemesis, Jacob Zuma.
Rather than examining the facts leading too the disaster it seems there were attempts to outrace even the blade runner Oscar Pistorius in the rush to score political points. Blame was heaped on rival politicians. Yet the miners' own role in stoking up tensions by murdering colleagues, security guards and even police officers was as exposed as the bottom of a baboon, in the whole saga.
Politicians are clearly fretting at the political cost of being seen to side with abelungu (white oppressors). They are having a tough time trying to juggle the pragmatic direction needed to keep the country stable and prosperous, and the populist sentiments that appeal to the majority of the voters.
For a country that is not even a generation away from the heinous oppression of apartheid perpetrated by whites on blacks, the black majority are obviously still smarting from their suffering and the populist approach of blaming past oppression can very easily gain traction - and votes.
That is why politicians have been falling over themselves to be seen to be sympathetic to the workers to the extend of ignoring glaring issues with the miners themselves such as the senseless murder of 10 people. Ever since the 34 miners were shot the 10 people they killed have hardly ever been mentioned. Sometimes not even as an afterthought.
The populist politics kickstarted by Malema culminated with Zuma kneeling before people some of whom may be murderers who should be arrested for killing their colleagues, security guards and police officers. The only thing absent from the political rhetoric is any meaningful condemnation of the murders that took place before the police action.
The sad irony is there no chance that the murders were legal, yet the police action could entirely be justified given the circumstances.
It is difficult to see how the current attention being feted on the miners cannot be seen to be rewarding them for the violence in which they senselessly murdered their colleagues.
7. Season everything with a bit of sangoma mystique
Throughout the week the media had reported that a man (or men) who appeared to be a sangoma (witch doctor) dressed in all white seemed to be performing rituals for the miners. One report claimed that the sangoma performed rituals over a group of stark naked men.
At the moment of the shooting itself, a large group of strikers was tiptoeing towards the police from a behind a sparse scrub of bushes that can scarcely provide cover for one man, let alone such a large group. The story I heard from a friend who comes from close to Marikana is that the sangoma had told the men that they would be invisible to the police!
They, armed with pangas, spears, kerries, a relic shotgun and a couple of pistols stolen from murdered police officers, expected to tiptoe, in broad daylight, up to a squad of police officers armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and overpower them.
Reports that appeared in the press later claimed that a well known n'anga from the Eastern Cape had charged R1000 per person to give them magic portions that would make them invincible. But, as with all sangoma prescriptions, there was a catch - no one was supposed to look back ever.
It is difficult to see how anyone can believe such hogwash from a sangoma. But then such is the power of faith. In some parts of the world people are prepared to blow themselves up in the belief that they will get tens of virgins once they die.
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