Marikana, my Marikana, we must never forget you

“My mother was a kitchen girl, my father was a garden boy, that’s why I’m a socialist.”

At the end of January 2013, the final report of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the Marikana Massacre will be submitted to the Presidency. Hopefully it will give us some idea of what happened on those fateful days when ordinary workers were killed.

What happened at Marikana was once again an expression of the structural violence that continues to exist in South Africa; the structural violence of inequality, unemployment and poverty, not forgetting racism and sexism. A violence that the Commission will hardly touch on in its final report.

Yet Marikana must make us reflect. In particular it must make us reflect on the silver bullet that seems to be our only solution to these problems. We are made to believe that if we wish to solve unemployment, well then jobs is the answer. If we wish to address inequality, then jobs is the answer. If we wish to eradicate poverty, well, you’ve guessed it, jobs is the answer. Yet it is not – as we saw in Marikana.

These were workers. Whether unionised, or “rogue” unionised or not unionised at all. They were in the most: workers. There have been suggestions that some were not workers but by and large the struggle at Lonmin, as is the struggle at most of our mines (or is it really “our” mines?), is a struggle waged by workers: better pay, better working conditions, better living conditions. They ask not for ownership of mines, though I think they have the right to demand this, and they do not demand exuberant salaries such as their management counterparts. They simply demand a decent job, a decent life.

Gross casualization of jobs, underpaid jobs and job insecurity simply provide jobs but do not begin to address the challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. The Youth Wage Subsidy mooted by some within the Treasury and the Democratic Alliance do not give (young) people either the security and/or the sufficient means to live decent lives. Neither will labour brokers, relaxing labour laws nor weak trade unions.

Countless times one has heard of the ineffectiveness of internships (serving tea and cleaning offices rather than acquiring skills) and this does suggest that skills and/or the necessary experience will not automatically be imparted on young people through this subsidy. What a scheme such as the subsidy will certainly do is inject public funds into the assets of the company and thus improve the company’s liquidity and thus share prices will rocket. The only people to benefit directly from such a program would be the share-holders.

Even more so, the working class, especially those seasoned workers who are employed, are right to fear that such a scheme will undermine their rights and their bargaining chip. It will undermine the decent jobs that already exist because it will be easier to employ two youths, casualised and paid a pittance, than to pay the decent salary of one worker.

One of the lessons that we must learn from Marikana is that jobs, in themselves, are not the end. They are the means to what is meant to be a decent life. Decent jobs give us a decent life. A simple, insecure and exploitative job will give us an insecure and exploitative life. Even slaves had jobs.

The struggle song quoted in the beginning of this article is often sung at revolutionary gatherings. Maybe it’s time we started to sing: “My mother was unemployed, my father was a mine worker, that’s why I’m a socialist, I’m a socialist, I’m a socialist!”

A decent job secures a decent life which leads to a decent death. The martyrs of Marikana bear witness to this basic truth.