Marikana: Voices from South Africa's Mining Massacre

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements This book includes testimony from strikers who were present at Marikana during the massacre that occurred on 16 August 2012. It offers ‘a view from the mountain’, from the koppie where workers were sitting when police manoeuvres commenced, and where many of our interviews were later conducted. It offers ‘a case to answer’, not the last word, and the judicial commission of inquiry will doubtless yield new evidence about what happened. Nevertheless, given the predominance of official discourse blaming the striking workers for the killings, it is important that their voice is heard. Funding for our research has come from the Raith Foundation and from the South African Research Chair in Social Change, which is funded by the Department of Science and Technology, administered by the National Research Foundation and hosted by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. We are grateful to Prof. Rory Ryan, Dean of Humanities, Prof. Lionel Posthumus, the faculty’s Vice Dean for Research, and Lucinda Landen, the Research Chair’s Administration Officer for supporting the project. Interviews were translated by Bridget Ndibongo, Mbongisi Dyantyi, Andisiwe Nakani and the research fieldworkers. Mamatlwe Sebei helped us by conducting preliminary interviews. We also received assistance from Marcelle Dawson, Shannon Walsh, David Moore and Fox Pooe. John McCann provided the maps, which add considerably to this book. We are also very grateful to Joseph Mathunjwa, Asanda Benya and Greg Marinovich who kindly provided photographs. The book was peer reviewed, with the reviewers providing supportive reports and valuable advice. James Nichol, Crispen Chinguno and Rehad Desai also read and commented on parts of the manuscript , as did members of Peter Alexander’s family. Encouraging feedback was received at lectures given in Johannesburg, Detroit, Oxford and London. Staff at Jacana, especially the editor Maggie Davey, did a superb job, working under considerable time pressures. 8 Acknowledgements 9 Most of all we are grateful to the Marikana strikers and community members we interviewed. They assisted us despite trauma, the watchful eyes of the police, and sometimes hunger. We were also assisted by Joseph Mathunjwa and other leaders of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, and we are indebted to them as well. Many of those we interviewed participated in a reference group, which helped us correct mistakes, and in this revised edition we have addressed further flaws that were drawn to our attention. Remaining errors of fact, interpretation and judgment are our own. We have conveyed the perspective of workers involved in the massacre to the best of our ability, and we hope they will feel that we have done them justice. We have done our best to be accurate and rigorous, but slips are possible in an enterprise of this kind and we apologise in advance for any we have made. ...