Marikana's path

Abstract

... The Marikana massacre of August 16, 2012 broke open an unexpected clearing in South African political life. The immediate response of many mainstream commentators and institutions - from political parties to universities - was to close that space up again, or pretend it was not there. Far from recognising how Marikana had changed our horizons, they treated it as a momentary aberration or unforeseeable tragedy, the result of criminality, backwardness, police indiscipline and the like....