Marikana revisited: �unANC, undemocratic and unheard of!�
Barolong Seboni | Friday September 5, 2014 13:53
ME: Okay, now let’s talk about what happened here.
DAPS: Where?
ME: Here at Marikana.
DAPS: When?
ME: When the miners went on strike.
DAPS: Oh, you mean that day when the miners went on strike?
ME: Yes. What happened that day?
DAPS: I think it was the day that the miners went on strike in Marikana.
ME: But I know that already…
DAPS: You know already, so what is it that you want to know that you know already?
ME: I have been sent.
DAPS: Aha! You are a spy? I knew it, I just knew you were up to no good when I saw your foreign passport! Get away, get out…You double agent! I’m a member of revolutionary movement that owns revolutionary properties all over the country!
ME: But I’m just a correspondent, a journalist from Botswana.
DAPS: You’re just a small boy, you can’t do anything to us!
ME: I don’t think you understand me. I have come here to hear exactly what happened at Marikana.
DAPS: Oh, I see so you have come for the hearing? Well it has not started yet. When it eventually starts then we will invite you. After you have been invited, you will then apply to be recognised.
When you have acquired recognition status, we would then ask you to apply for accreditation so that you may cover the hearing. When that has been endorsed you will hear from the department of Home Affairs about the hearing.
ME: But I don’t want to hear from Home Affairs.
DAPS: How are you going to hear about the hearing if you don’t want to hear from Home Affairs?
ME: It seems to me that there’s too much officialdom…
DAPS: There are certain internal processes that have to be followed in order to fall into the democratic structures of our revolutionary part which used to be a revolutionary movement
ME: You are in the executive, why can’t you just give me information directly or just invite me yourself?
DAPS: I have told you before that it cannot happen! (At this point he starts to jump up and down one leg at a time in what he has previously referred to as toyi-toyi!)
ME: Why not?
DAPS: (The toyi-toyi motion becomes more rapid and louder as he chants!) That would be undemocratic! UnANC and unheard of!
ME: The three un’s! That’s fascinating, we have four D’s where I come from!
DAPS: Unbelievable!
ME: Aha! That makes it four so we are square. Let’s make our way back to the interview at hand. Why did you shoot the miners?
DAPS: It wasn’t us, it was the police.
ME: Why did the police shoot the miners?
DAPS: Infact, it was not the police. Our latest and most updated information says it was the security forces.
ME: Why did the security forces shoot the miners?
DAPS: The facts on the ground that can be corroborated by collaboraters are that the security forces, which are not the police per se, did not shoot the miners.
ME: Thirty four people are reported dead, so what happened?
DAPS: The security forces, which are not necessarily the police, opened fire in the direction of the weapon-wielding mob!
ME: And they shot them?
DAPS: You must understand that where you surrender leadership to sangomas and therefore which creates a sense of invincibility which leads to adventurism…
ME: The leader of the union says the police were protecting the interests of small minority and advancing the narrow interests of the employers. He says the police used unwanted force.
DAPS: (As he says this he hops from one leg to another and chants.) Those words are themselves unpalatable, unprovoked, unwarranted and unwanted!