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."
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
- β€οΈ Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
- π Come talk in the New Weekly Queer thread
- π Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread
- βοΈ August Movie Nominations βοΈ
reminders:
- π You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- π Hexbearβs algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
- π Sorting by new you nerd
- π If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
- πΆ Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
- β€οΈFoundations of Leninism
- β€οΈAnarchism and Other Essays
The Libs need to learn somehow. We've had a pretty good number of people coming in to say hi and participate in the community, we've changed a few minds, and it sounds like some people like having a challenge to the pervasive liberalism
Also it's fun to dunk on people.
its fun for the first 10 minutes but after a while it just gets annoying tbh.
Kinda reminds me of the old r/cth subreddit
I actually had a nice interaction where I learned about submarine design philosophy (a question that never occurred to me before). Itβs not all bad.
not really, it's childish and a waste of time
if i want to dunk on people i can go literally anywhere else on the internet to do that. the whole point of hexbear (IMO) is that it's a space where everyone is more or less on the same page
Death to America
America delanda est