South Africa: Miners Shot Down - the Film Every South African Should See, and Never Forget

analysis

Rehad Desai's beautifully filmed and uncompromising documentary, 'Miners Shot Down', is about so much more than the massacre by police of 34 striking workers at the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana in August 2012. The film offers a unique prism through which to view contemporary power relations in 'democratic' South Africa (and perhaps globally) where the unholy trinity of capital, politics and security were (and are) pitted against labour - poorly-paid, badly educated and exploited workers. The film also shows that the miners had been so shockingly "othered" that killing them was not beyond the imagination or capacity of those in power and authority.

There is much that is disturbing and shameful in Rehad Desai's tender 86-minute filmic exploration of events over six days in August 2012 leading up to what has become known globally as the Marikana massacre, one of the most disgraceful events to have taken place in post-Apartheid, "free" and democratic South Africa.

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