Attacks on whites ignored
Our rulers, with their eyes on the general election, are similarly keen to downplay the black-on-white violence.
It’s a textbook example of how, 30 years into democracy, racial and political agendas still drive events in South Africa. This incident revolves around the expanding use of violence as a negotiating tactic, as well as the growing phenomenon of specifically black-on-white violence, whether it be as retribution, intimidation or to gain political concessions.
In response, the police, as usual, do nothing. The government, as usual, is missing in action. And the media, which is normally vociferous about verbal slurs by whites against blacks, has been curiously muted.
Nevertheless, the script will be familiar to anyone familiar with the apartheid-era playbook of white-on-black violence. What differs in the new version is that races have been swapped around. There is also a new element, the use of mass hostage-taking as a negotiating tactic.
It started in October last year when the radical Amcu union, engaged in a recognition dispute with National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), held 107 miners underground for three days at Gold One’s Modder East operation. Denying NUM allegations of coercion and hostage-taking, Amcu described it as a “peaceful sit-in” that ended when the miners ran out of food. No-one was arrested.
By December, the union’s tactic had escalated and metastasised. In response to Gold One firing 51 men involved in the October event, 540 miners were taken hostage at the end of their shift and held 350 metres below the surface.
Over the next five days, things turned violent and then racial, explains Victor Ngwane, a NUM regional organiser. “The perpetrators said if they beat up these white guys, management and government would listen to them.”
Solidarity, the white-dominated union, described the situation as characterised by “a disturbing level of violence and intimidation”. “Workers were subjected to brutal and inhu
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mane treatment. They faced not only verbal threats and physical assaults, but also were subjected to extreme forms of humiliation.”
Eventually, following fraught negotiations, all the miners were released. At least 40 received medical attention at the mine’s clinic and another 12 were admitted to the local Netcare hospital with serious injuries.
But the assailants were not arrested. Only Gold One has responded with any decisiveness. It fired 401 mineworkers who took part in the hostage-taking, while another 140 are still going through disciplinary hearings.
Perhaps as South Africans, we’re just suffering from bad news overload, but the hostage-taking has been met with the same kind of uncomprehending indifference that greeted the first reports of the intimidatory violence of the construction mafias against companies.
And if this were an incident of targeted whiteon-black violence, it would have filled the media edge-to-edge. There would have been vox pops; editorials; concerned commentators shaking their heads over racism; and activist NGOs issuing statements. By hook or by crook, the Human Rights Commission would have inserted itself into the equation, possibly by prosecuting the mining companies for tolerating racism.
Our rulers, with their eyes on the general election, are similarly keen to downplay the matter.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe told Rapport that this was not the responsibility of the government. This was for the mining companies to sort out.
Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi said that, indeed, this was a “dangerous trend”. All parties, the minister said sagely, should show leadership, avoid opportunism, and follow prescribed processes.
So don’t expect much governance to take place over the next few months. All the ANC government’s efforts are going to be devoted to getting re-elected and nothing will change that.