On 16 August 2012, 34 miners were gunned down by the bullets of the South African police while demanding nothing more than a living wage. Ten others had already been slain earlier that week under the same shadow, bringing the death toll to 44. History has since named this tragedy the Marikana Massacre, a wound reopened each year on its anniversary.

For the victims and their families, little has changed to transform their lives or the fate of the broader community. Despite the mineral wealth beneath their feet, poverty still greets visitors as they enter Marikana. Residents speak of unchecked criminality, families struggle with basic needs such as healthcare, food, shelter, and a sense of neglect lingers. The town’s economic lifeblood is mining, a sector that predominantly employs men, leaving many women without work and therefore more vulnerable to gender-based violence and other forms of abuse. Marikana’s plight is a mirror held up to countless communities across the country.

Harrowing figures pale beside the daily violence 

The massacre’s 44 lives, harrowing as they are, pale beside the relentless tide of violence that has since engulfed the nation. South Africa records an average of 75.5 murders every single day. This year’s commemorations mark 4 748 days since that fateful day. At this daily rate, by the close of the day, the nation would have recorded approximately 358 475 murders. This is a figure that rivals, almost number for number, the United Nations Human Rights Office’s estimate of deaths in the Syrian civil war between 2011 and 2021. Comparable death tolls emerge from nations like South Sudan and Yemen, long ravaged by civil war and chronic instability, yet South Africa, during the same period, has remained under an ostensibly stable, democratic order.

It is a paradox of democracy, one that demands urgent and unflinching examination to scrutinise how a nation at peace harbours such sustained and silent carnage. Murders should stand at the apex of the national dialogue, demanding innovative and decisive interventions, lest it scuppers every other effort towards development. 

Shaka iLembe

Meanwhile, the country is captivated by Shaka iLembe, a televised epic dramatising the blood-soaked rivalries of past generations, tribes warring for dominance, kinsmen killing kinsmen in the name of power. African spiritual traditions teach that identity is inseparable from ancestry. Might today’s generation, then, be unwilling vessels of ancestral bloodlust, reliving their forebears’ battles through modern acts of violence? The question may be uncomfortable, but it is one worth placing before the spiritualists to explain the persistence of such unrestrained killing in a nation not at war.

South Africa is not alone in having endured tribal wars or grappled with severe underdevelopment. Many nations, particularly in Africa and Central Asia, share similar histories and economic burdens; however, their murder rates remain negligible by comparison. This makes our case an outlier, demanding a more searching analysis.

The National Dialogue 

The National Dialogue, which was in session from 15 to 17 August, should grasp this issue with both hands, probing beyond the surface to expose the root causes of this scourge. This forum should go beyond cosmetic conversations and desist pacifying a growingly disenchanted society. While the country’s chronic underdevelopment and the widening gulf between rich and poor will inevitably emerge as key factors, they are not the whole story. Indeed, such conditions have helped fertilise the growth of the “hitman-for-hire” economy and the grim trade of ritual killings for material gain, temporarily, these being symptoms of a deep moral erosion within society.

The National Dialogue must therefore resist the temptation of single-thread explanations. It must commit the time, intellectual rigour, as well as political will to map the complex web of historical, economic, cultural, and spiritual forces feeding this relentless tide of violence. Only by confronting the multiplicity of causes can the nation hope to break the cycle and reclaim the sanctity of life.

At its essence, the National Dialogue should be embraced by all citizens as a platform to forge a shared vision of our future. Without such unity of purpose, disillusionment will deepen when the outcomes fail to meet expectations. Already, some believe their concerns will be addressed simply by virtue of the dialogue taking place. This may just be wishful thinking, as certain solutions may demand changes to legal frameworks before they can be realised. Whether there will be political appetite to make such changes remains to be seen.

True test will lie in its implementation

We may want to refer to the year 2018, when the National Assembly adopted a motion to review section 25 of the Constitution. Public hearings, akin to a national dialogue, were held, drawing more than 700 000 written submissions. The overwhelming sentiment was for a constitutional amendment to enable land expropriation without compensation. Although a majority of parliamentarians supported the proposed Bill, it fell short of the two-thirds majority required, and the effort collapsed. Years later, the issue remains unresolved, and the energy of that national conversation has dissipated into frustration.

This is the danger before us now. After investing money, time, and raising hopes, if the structural impediments that brought the country to this moment remain untouched, citizens will lose hope beyond measure. The result could be more poverty, more murders, more gender-based violence, and deeper moral decay, eroding the fragile chances of national rehabilitation and leaving Marikana as merely a footnote in the chronicle of the country’s decline.

Citizens must understand that the envisaged outcome of this dialogue is a social pact. If attained, the true test will lie in its implementation, where, as always, the snare waits in the details.