It’s shocking how the ANCYL try to politicise every tragic event in South Africa; and incredibly ironic when their poisonous, militant rhetoric has been the catalyst.
Former Youth League leader, Julius Malema, and his entourage of anarchistic ANCYL troublemakers, have been spreading their malicious venom for years now, corrupting the minds of the masses and inciting violence and unrest.
From Johannesburg to Kwa-Zula Natal, from Limpopo to Cape Town, the ANCYL are the poster children for violence and lawlessness in post-apartheid South Africa.
The Marikana mining massacre was an absolute disaster, an utterly tragic event that could have and should have been avoided.
Some serious questions need to be asked in the wake of this catastrophe:
What possessed these mine workers to defy the authorities and take up arms?
What drove the workers to such madness that they believed they had every right to charge at the police, wielding pangas and traditional weapons, themselves coming to murder and slaughter officers of the law?
What message did these workers have echoing in their minds that gave them this deranged sense of greed and entitlement, that they had no shame in simply demanding a completely unreasonable salary increase of three times their current wage?
Who has been poisoning the minds of the masses with militant war-talk rhetoric that says, ‘Just demand and take what you want, WITHOUT compensation’?
As the sun rises on a new week following the tragedy, we must not allow ourselves to lose sight of all the unfortunate victims and their families; including the police officers who were butchered by the murderous hordes only days earlier.
I don’t blame the SAPS for this massacre, even if crowd-control procedures were not properly followed. The bottom line is, the terrified officers were left with no choice but self-defence when having to face down the marauding madmen who came at them with murderous intent.
The police are also the victims here, each and every one of them who were forced into a situation they did not want. The officers involved have to now deal with the trauma of the massacre and the tender, raw emotions they’re feeling after lives were unnecessarily lost in the heat of battle. We can only hope that the police are receiving professional trauma counselling in the aftermath of this tragedy.
A portion of the blame must be laid at the feet of the ANCYL and their militant entitlement rhetoric, which I believe, had a big part to play in this disaster.
Without the ANCYL telling the masses to simply take, to stay militant, to take up arms if necessary and to fight and take without compensation; the workers at Lonmin might never had adopted such a lawless attitude in the first place.
The troublemaking ANCYL are guilty, and instead of trying to deflect attention away from themselves, and gain cheap political points, they should take responsibility for inciting the people to violence and should apologise to the suffering families of Marikana for the part they played in this tragedy.
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