Hope and Betrayal on the Platinum Belt: Responsibility, Violence and Corporate Power in South Africa

Abstract

This article considers the resurgence in state-backed violence against mineworkers in South Africa, which reached its apogee at the Marikana platinum mines in August 2012, in relation to the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within the post-revolutionary political economy. I explore a paradox of CSR, which has emerged more strongly than ever in the wake of Marikana, whereby mining companies have been able to use CSR to dispense with (rather than fulfil) their social obligations and to externalise (rather than address) their social impact. Operating within an old-school logic of paternalism and benevolence, the practice of CSR is at odds with the discourse of empowerment, upward mobility and worker autonomy that modern mining companies claim to foster. Marikana shows us how CSR paradoxically serves as a resource that empowers companies (in response to their critics and claimants) rather than its intended beneficiaries.

Notes

¹ See, for example, D. Fig, ‘Manufacturing Amnesia: Corporate Social Responsibility in South Africa’, International Affairs, 81, 3 (2005), pp. 599–617; S. Marks, ‘The Silent Scourge? Silicosis, Respiratory Disease and Gold Mining in South Africa’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 32, 4 (2006), pp. 569–89.

² J. Sharp, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Development: An Anthropological Perspective’, Development Southern Africa, 23, 2 (2006), pp. 213–22.

³ P. Stewart,‘“Kings of the Mine”: Rock Drill Operators and the 2012 Strike Wave on South African Mines’, South African Review of Sociology, 44, 3 (2013), pp. 42–63.

⁴ See, for example, C. Chinguno, ‘Marikana: Fragmentation, Precariousness, Strike Violence and Solidarity’, Review of African Political Economy, 40, 138 (2013), pp. 639–46; R. Chaskalson, ‘The Road to Marikana: Transformations in South Africa’s Platinum Industry, 1994–2012’, elsewhere in this issue; K. Breckenridge, ‘Marikana and the Limits of Biopolitics: Themes in the Recent Scholarship of South Africa’, Africa, 84, 1 (2014), pp. 151–61.

⁵ P. Bond and S. Mottiar, ‘Movements, Protests and a Massacre in South Africa’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 31, 2 (2013), p. 291.

⁶ See P. Alexander, ‘Marikana, Turning Point in South African History’, Review of African Political Economy, 40, 138 (2013), pp. 605–19; L. Sinwell with S. Mbatha, The Spirit of Marikana: The Rise of Insurgent Trade Unionism in South Africa (London, Pluto Press, 2016).

⁷ Bond and Mottiar, ‘Movements, Protests’.

⁸ R. Bream, ‘Gold Fever Spurs Frenzy of Mining Acquisitions’, Financial Times, London, 31 August 2006, p. 31.

⁹ D Rajak, ‘Theatres of Virtue: Collaboration, Consensus and the Social Life of Corporate Social Responsibility’, Focaal, 60 (2011), pp. 9–20.

¹⁰ Lonmin plc, ‘Sustainable Development’, available at https://www.lonmin.com/sustainable-development/sustainable-development-overview, retrieved 20 June 2016.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² See A. Lichtenstein, ‘What Went Wrong at Marikana’, Los Angeles Review of Books, 1 September 2012.

¹³ See D. Smith, ‘Anglo American Sheds 15,000 Jobs as Profits are Hit by Falling Metals Prices’, Guardian, London, 31 July 2009.

¹⁴ J. Sparshott, ‘Anglo American to Slash Jobs’, Wall Street Journal [online], New York, 21 February 2009.

¹⁵ Testimony of Mahommed Seedat, Marikana Commission of Inquiry transcript, Day 289, 11 September 2014, p. 37712.

¹⁶ Carroll, quoted in M. Vanek, ‘The Four Truths SA Can’t Avoid – Cynthia Carroll’, Moneyweb, 4 December 2012, available at http://www.moneyweb.co.za/archive/the-four-truths-sa-cant-avoid-cynthia-carroll/, retrieved 16 June 2016.

¹⁷ See Smith, ‘Anglo American Sheds 15,000 Jobs’.

¹⁸ W. Gumede, ‘South Africa: Marikana is a Turning Point’, Guardian, 29 August 2012, available at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/marikana-turning-point-south-africa, retrieved 16 June 2016.

¹⁹ See F. Barchiesi, Precarious Liberation: Workers, the State and Contested Social Citizenship in Postapartheid South Africa (Albany, SUNY Press, 2011).

²⁰ S. Ngcobo,‘The Economic Tragedy of Marikana’, Moneyweb, 17 September 2012, available at http://www.moneyweb.co.za/archive/the-economic-tragedy-of-marikana/, retrieved 16 June 2016.

²¹ Marikana Commission of Inquiry transcript, day 294, 5 November 2014, p. 38523.

²² Transcript of Lonmin Briefing with South African Police Service Commission, 14 August 2012, Exhibit JJJ–192, Marikana Commission of Inquiry, pp. 11–13.

²³ Shorthand for London’s share markets.

²⁴ P. Gilbert, ‘“Money Mines”: An Ethnography of Frontiers, Capital and Extractive Industry in London and Bangladesh’, PhD thesis, University of Sussex, 2015, p. 39.

²⁵ Panmure and Co., ‘Equity Research Mining Flash’, unpublished document, 17 August 2012, p. 3.

²⁶ Panmure and Co., ‘Equity Research Mining Flash’.

²⁷ D. Rajak, In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility (Palo Alto, Stanford Univesity Press, 2011).

²⁸ Gilbert, ‘“Money Mines”’.

²⁹ Barchiesi, Precarious Liberation, p. 22.

³⁰ K. Breckenridge, ‘Revenge of the Commons: The Crisis in the South African Mining Industry’, paper delivered at History Workshop online, 5 November 2012.

³¹ Stewart,‘“Kings of the Mine”’.

³² Testimony of Vusimuzi Mandla Mabuyakhulu, Marikana Commission of Inquiry transcript, day 48, 14 February 2013, pp. 5297–8.

³³ See T.S. Phakathi, ‘“Getting On and Getting By” Underground: Gold Miners’ Informal Working Practice of Making a Plan (Planisa)’, Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 2, 2 (2013), pp. 126–49.

³⁴ A-M. Makhulu, ‘The Question of Freedom: Post-Emancipation South Africa in a Neoliberal Age’, in C.J. Greenhouse (ed.), Ethnographies of Neoliberalism (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), p. 137.

³⁵ D. Moodie, ‘Becoming a Social Movement Union: Cyril Ramaphosa and the National Union of Mineworkers’, Transformation: Critical Perspectives on South Africa, 72/73 (2010), p. 172.

³⁶ D. James, ‘The Return of the Broker: Consensus, Hierarchy and Choice in South African Land Reform’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 17, 2 (2011), pp. 318–38.

³⁷ P. Alexander, ‘Interview: South Africa after Marikana’, International Socialism, 137 (2013), available at http://isj.org.uk/interview-south-africa-after-marikana/, retrieved 27 June 2016.

³⁸ See B.C. Simelane and G. Nicolson, ‘Ubank On It: The On-Going Spiral of Debt in Mining Communities’, Daily Maverick, Johannesburg, 21 January 2015.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ See M. Fisher-French, ‘Teba Gives Birth to Ubank’, Mail and Guardian, Johannesburg, 7 October 2010.

⁴¹ See D. James and D. Rajak, ‘Credit Apartheid, Migrants, Mines and Money’, African Studies, 73, 3 (2014), pp. 455–76.

⁴² See Simelane and Nicolson,‘Ubank On It’.

⁴³ See L. Steyn, ‘Marikana Miners in Debt Sinkhole’, Mail and Guardian, 7 September 2012.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ See A. Roy, Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development (New York, Routledge, 2010); P. Mader, The Political Economy of Microfinance: Financializing Poverty (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

⁴⁶ F. Cooper, On the African Waterfront: Urban Disorder and Transformation of Work in Colonial Mombassa (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987).

⁴⁷ See, for example, A. Bezuidenhout and S. Buhlungu, ‘From Compounded to Fragmented Labour:

Mineworkers and the Demise of Compounds in South Africa’, Antipode, 43, 2 (2012), pp. 237–63.

⁴⁸ Chinguno, ‘Marikana: Fragmentation’.

⁴⁹ Benchmarks Foundation, Communities in the Platinum Minefields: A Review of Platinum Mining in the Bojanala District of the North West Province: A Participatory Action Research (PAR) Approach, Policy Gap 6 (2012), p. 72, available at http://www.bench-marks.org.za/research/rustenburg_review_policy_gap_final_aug_2012.pdf, retrieved 20 June 2016.

⁵⁰ Ibid., p. 45.

⁵¹ Marikana Commission of Inquiry transcript, day 292, 16 September 2014, pp. 38220–22.

⁵² A. Bezuidenhout, ‘New Patterns of Exclusion in the South African Mining Industry’, in A. Habib and K. Hartley (eds), Racial Redress and Citizenship in South Africa (Cape Town, HSRC Press, 2008), also cited by R. Chaskalson, elsewhere in this issue.

⁵³ M. Ramphele, A Bed Called Home: Life in the Migrant Labour Hostels of Cape Town (Athens, Ohio University Press, 1993), pp. 3–4.

⁵⁴ Interview with AMCU lawyer, 7 January 2013. All interviews for this article were conducted by the author, unless otherwise stated.

⁵⁵ Testimony of Barnard Mokwena, Marikana Commission of Inquiry transcript, day 291, 15 September 2014, p. 38036.

⁵⁶ Lonmin plc, letter to the Benchmarks Foundation in response to their report Communities in the Platinum Minefields, 29 November 2012, p. 4.

⁵⁷ Rustenburg local municipality, draft Rustenburg Local Municipality Local Economic Development Strategy, 2011, p. 35.

⁵⁸ Quoted in S. Mapaila, ‘A Marikana Story that Isn’t Being Told’, Umsebenzi Online, South African Communist Party, Johannesburg, available at http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=3736#one, retrieved 7 September 2012.

⁵⁹ Benchmarks Foundation, Communities in the Platinum Minefields, p. 54.

⁶⁰ Testimony of Mahommed Seedat, pp. 37728–9.

⁶¹ Testimony of Cyril Rampahosa, Marikana Commission of Inquiry transcript, day 271, 11 August 2014, p. 34406.

⁶² Ibid., pp. 34496–7.

⁶³ Ibid., p. 34406.

⁶⁴ Marikana Commission of Inquiry transcript, day 289, 11 September 2014, pp. 37716–17.

⁶⁵ Testimony of Mahommed Seedat, pp. 37711, 37723.

⁶⁶ Testimony of Mahommed Seedat, p. 37714.

⁶⁷ E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture (New York, The New Press,

1991).

⁶⁸ See P. Carstens, In the Company of Diamonds: De Beers, Kleinzee and the Control of a Town (Athens, Ohio

University Press, 2001); D. Moodie, Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration (Berkeley, University of

California Press, 1994).

⁶⁹ J. Ferguson, ‘Declarations of Dependence: Labour, Personhood, and Welfare in Southern Africa’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19, 2 (2013), p. 223.

⁷⁰ ANC, ‘ANC Alliance Statement on the Situation at the Lonmin Marikana Platinum Mines’, 7 September 2012, available at http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=6487, retrieved 20 June 2016.

⁷¹ Chinguno, ‘Marikana: Fragmentation’, p. 640.