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The rise of insurgent trade unionism in South Africa
Source: Roar Magazine
Four years after South Africa’s bloodiest post-apartheid massacre, in which dozens of striking miners were killed by police, a fresh memory of Marikana is needed.
Marikana is remembered around the world as a moment of sorrow in which 34 black South African mineworkers were killed by police on August 16, 2012. But on its own, this memory can obscure a much more promising vision of direct democracy and rank-and-file organizing that eventually changed the course of modern South African politics. The massacre culminated in the longest strike in South African mining history and possibly the longest strike in the world in the year 2014.