Rethinking Marikana: Warm and Cold Lenses in Plea for Humanity
Rafapa, Lesibana
This article examines a rethinking of the historic Marikana tragedy of 16 August
2012, as encoded in the eNCA documentary film The Marikana Massacre: Through
the Lens. My approach is in the form of commentary on the act, scene, actor, agent
and agency pertaining to the way the Marikana massacre is selectively revived in the
documentary film. I make these comments in order to scaffold discussions of the
documentary producers’ poíésis and praxis giving shape to their narrative. The
presencing and absencing of the documentary are discussed in making the case for
a need to analyse carefully the background of the Marikana shootings and the
situation in which they occurred, in much the same way as it is necessary to explore
the producers’ purpose and narrative in selecting to produce the documentary as
they did. The study argues that the producers of the documentary film chose to
narrate the small-person plight of the killed Marikana miners, security guards and
police officers by silencing issues around other main actors one may categorise as
symbolic of big-person state power, only to enrich the supposed bigger meaning
contingent upon the audience’s pre-existing knowledge of the context of the
incidents. In this way the illusory objectivity of the narration is strengthened towards
a more cogent correlation with what obtains in the real world of nearly two decades
of post-apartheid South Africa.
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