{"id":247,"date":"2019-08-27T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T07:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marxistworkersparty.org.za\/?page_id=247"},"modified":"2021-01-11T15:31:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T13:31:45","slug":"the-lessons-of-marikana","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/?page_id=247","title":{"rendered":"The Lessons of Marikana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Weizmann Hamilton<\/strong>*,<\/em> <\/em><\/strong>2013<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The murders of 34 workers at Marikana on August 16 last year, and the tumultuous events that ensued, illuminated with blinding clarity all the accumulated political and social contradictions in SA society. It clarified relations between the classes like no other event before and threw the political role of the ANC government, the state and the trade union leadership into sharp relief. The same conclusion is drawn by opposing classes: we cannot continue like this. Marikana drew a line in the sand dividing the post-apartheid era into two epochs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first 18 years the economic dictatorship of the capitalist class was preserved by political agreement in the negotiated settlement and legitimised by parliamentary democracy. Marikana exposed the purpose of ANC rule for what the capitalist class intended it to be: maintaining the grip of white capital on the commanding heights of the economy whilst assimilating a tiny black capitalist minority. This has perpetuated the exploitation of the black working class, and allowed the accumulation of extreme wealth for the economic and political elite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second epoch\nhas begun with the working class resumption of the march towards the overthrow\nof capitalism and the socialist transformation of society from which it had\nbeen diverted by the dead-end of parliamentary democracy. This epoch will be\nmarked by the battle between the classes. The working class is no longer\nprepared to endure. This year has opened with class confrontation on the farms\nand in the mines and an uprising against municipal re-demarcation by the\nresidents of Zamdela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The ANC and Mangaung<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marikana formed\nthe backdrop to the ANC\u2019s Mangaung conference. Mangaung concluded its business\nwithout even a minute of silence for the victims of the worst massacre since\nSharpeville. Delegates adopted the youth wage subsidy, the National Development\nPlan and erased \u2018nationalisation\u2019 from economic policy documents. Now, the Zuma\ngovernment is proposing to declare teaching an essential service and to ban\nteacher strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add insult to\ninjury the butchers of Marikana were in- stalled in their ANC positions with\noverwhelming endorsement of conference delegates. Ramaphosa who condemned the\nLonmin strike as criminal is now in prime position to succeed Zuma as\npresident, and Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa, who would have had to give\nthe order to crush the strike in blood, was voted onto the NEC. Zuma, who must\nhave authorised the massacre, was returned with over 70% of the vote. But Zuma\u2019s\npopularity inside his party is in inverse proportion to his standing in society\n\u2013 a chasm separates the ANC and the working class that elected it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country is\nno longer in the hands of the ANC. The political atmosphere is pregnant with\nthe idea of an alternative. The idea that the ANC is the party of liberation is\nno longer enough to keep the allegiance of the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Bosses counter-offensive<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mining\nindustry\u2019s threat of mass retrenchments confirms its determination to avenge\nitself on the workers. They want a restoration of the pre-Marikana dictatorship\nand have been encouraged by the decisive shift to the right of the ANC at\nMangaung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That they have\nreacted to public outrage by substituting the stick with the carrot, offering\nhousing and an employee share ownership scheme at Lonmin, does not alter these\nobjectives. The mining bosses are set on a counter-offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Normally the\nideologues of capital dilute their language to hide the class divisions in\nsociety. But in a Business Day<\/em> \u2013 the\nmouthpiece of capital \u2013 editorial the day after the massacre, their language\nwas clear. Soaked with class antagonism and contempt toward the mineworkers, it\nbemoaned the failure of \u2018the majority black establishment (of which the NUM and\nthe ruling ANC and the union umbrella Cosatu are leaders) to come to terms with\nthe majority of black, marginalised, poor and desperate people.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

NUM – policing the workers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This same\neditorial embraced the \u2018venerable\u2019 NUM. Terrified by the rejection of NUM by\nworkers across the mining sector, Business\nDay<\/em> describes NUM as \u2018the thoughtful, considered heart of the union\nmovement\u2026 It appreciates and values private capital and strong companies.\nBusiness everywhere should be hoping the union finds a way to defend itself\u2026\u2019\nThe NUM, they tell us, is a tool of the mining industry bosses in maintaining the\nslavery of the mineworkers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NUM worked hard\nto earn this praise. In the Rustenburg mines NUM had made itself infamous as\nthe \u2018National Union of Management\u2019 for some years ahead of Marikana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NUM\u2019s role in\nthe 2012 Lonmin dispute was no different. It denounced the workers\u2019 demands for\nR12500 as unreasonable and condemned the increase won as having set a bad\nprecedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Strike committees<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this\nrejection of NUM and the elevation of independent rank-and-file strike\ncommittees that simultaneously represented the greatest danger to the mining\nbosses and the greatest achievement of the workers. This process unshackled the\nmine workers and allowed them to rise to their feet to wage a determined struggle.\nThe uniting of these strike committees across the mining sector \u2013 at the\ninitiation of the DSM \u2013 in a national strike committee is a new foundation and\ntradition that no number of retrenchments can erase. The consciousness of the\nworking class has been raised immeasurably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NUM\u2019s\nrecognition of the significance of this development lies behind their\nreactionary attitude to the workers. The prison gates of the collective\nbargaining system have been breached. The NUM leadership\u2019s authority has been\nbroken and the groundwork laid, through the independent strike committees, for\nthe emergence, in time, of an entirely new union movement outside of their\ncontrol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Role of SACP & Cosatu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egged on by the\nSouth African Communist Party (SACP), the Cosatu leadership soiled the\nreputation of a once great trade union federation by taking the unprecedented\nstep of attempting to turn worker on worker through the \u2018Hands Off NUM\u2019\ncampaign in a desperate but futile attempt to force the NUM onto workers who\nhad decisively rejected this rotten gang of class collaborators. It is not the\nDSM\u2019s method to use insults as a substitute for reasoned arguments. We believe,\nhowever, that this action of the SACP through the dominant faction it controls\nin the Cosatu leadership, qualifies as counter-revolutionary. Had a major\nconfrontation occurred, it would have done incalculable damage to the unity of\nthe working class and set back the struggle against the bosses and capitalism\nfor years. Fortunately this potentially disastrous campaign found very little\necho amongst Cosatu members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact on\nthe political dynamic within Cosatu is not limited to the damage flowing from\ntheir blind support of NUM and the failure to organise solidarity with the mine\nworkers. The cowardly capitulation of the anti-Zuma faction at the Cosatu\ncongress played a critical role in determining the scale of the Zuma-faction\u2019s\nvictory as well as the ideological triumph of the right wing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cosatu\u2019s\nideological roots and militant socialist traditions can only be revived if it\nsplits from the Tripartite Alliance. That task can be undertaken only by the\nrank-and-file. We are past the point where a political alternative \u2013 a mass\nworkers party \u2013 could emerge out of Cosatu in its present form. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Political vacuum<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For capital, the\nANC\u2019s role as the main instrument of their rule has passed sell-by date. The\ndebate amongst the elite is now about how the decline in ANC support will\nmanifest itself. The bourgeoisie is actively preparing for an alternative. This\nis what lies behind the active encouragement by the capitalists of the\nblackening of the Democratic Alliance. Plans by Mampela Ramphele to launch a\nnew party will not offer the working class an alternative. Her mandate would be\nto prettify capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same fears\nthe ruling capitalist class had in the 1980s \u2013 that continued white minority\nrule would threaten capitalism as an insurrectionary working class embraced the\nideas of socialism \u2013 now stalk the boardrooms of the captains of industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key lesson of Marikana is that the working class needs to rebuild its political independence. That this process has begun \u2013 with the founding of the Workers and Socialist Party (WASP) by the mine workers and the DSM \u2013 will profoundly change the social and political landscape of SA in the months and years ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

*Originally published in Izwi Labasebenzi<\/em> as a spread by Weizmann Hamilton & Liv Shange<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marikana drew a line in the sand dividing the post-apartheid era into two epochs.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":392,"parent":222,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-247","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_hostinger_reach_plugin_has_subscription_block":false,"_hostinger_reach_plugin_is_elementor":false,"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2444,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247\/revisions\/2444"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}