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."
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Camino de Santiago Quest 2023: Day 31
Now, after one month, it is done.
I woke up today at 4:45am and began my final 32km push in the dark. At first I was unenthusiastic about yet another walk but that shifted the moment the sun came up and I first spotted the ocean. From that instant forward I was ebullient, like every minute was my birthday.
Then I was there. Finisterre. Latin for the end of the world. This was the westernmost extent of the Roman Empire and to them it was the place where all journeys ended. So it was for me as well, but in the best possible way. I charged through the town, a bag of sour candy in hand, and stopped by the pilgrim office to collect my Fisterranna certificate. Then I was on my way up the hill to the lighthouse and cape.
It was a tourist trap. There were hundreds of people there, mostly families, mostly not peregrinos. I saw a few folks I knew and chatted with them but otherwise it looked like Fisherman’s Wharf. That’s okay. I stood in line to take a picture with the final Camino distance marker (Km 0,0!). I knew most of the others posing with it hadn’t walked, let alone from France like I had. That’s okay too. It left me feeling like others saw what I’ve done as special, like they wanted to be part of it too. Everything that touches the Camino becomes special, becomes important, at least for a moment.
~550 miles, ~875 kilometers. I walked across the entire Iberian Peninsula from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic. Pretty cool.
I took a lot of photos. My favorite has me looking out over the open ocean, back to the camera, raising my trekking poles to the sky in triumph. I might get that one framed lol. I took a few pictures of my busted sneakers too. Might just go ahead and burn those.
There was a family praying together atop a cliff and I sat near them and pulled a prayer card from my wallet which I’d received at a roadside chapel a few days prior. I read it aloud and took comfort in some parts. The more explicitly Christian stuff I hoped was non-binding. Still not a Catholic.
Each restaurant at the cape had its own credencial stamp, but there was one in particular I had in mind. It features the image of the lighthouse emblazoned with the text “Faro de Finisterre: Fin del Camino.” Me and a cyclist pilgrim went from bar to bar looking for it. I tracked it down and agonized for over a minute about where to stamp it. Ultimately I placed it right above my Santiago completion stamp on the first page, over my name and the header that reads Credencial del Peregrino. I felt good about that. I felt like I had done it. For the first time, even after Santiago, I felt like the work was finished and I could rest.
Back in town I went full Amerikkka Mode and ate chicken fingers with honey mustard. Spain even does that better than we do, somehow.
I took the bus to Santiago. Durham was there. We grabbed coffee and talked about the experience, what it was all for, why we did it. It was good that my friends bailed, he said. It forced me to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is what the Camino is all about. Vulnerability is a gift.
It’s dark and quiet now on the bus as we retrace the Camino in reverse on our way to Madrid. I’m sat rewinding through all my photos as I see others around me doing the same. I don’t know what these memories will mean in a week, a month, a decade. I wonder what I’ll think of them when I come back for round two.
In short it was a pretty buen camino, thanks for reading. Thus concludes our 31-part series. Aidios camigos.