For a blog exploring the intersection of private sector activity and public interests, last week's police-mineworker shootings in South Africa reflect key issues and dilemmas in their starkest -- and saddest -- form.
The widely reported police shooting of over 30 illegally striking workers near Marikana platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg -- unprecedented in the post-apartheid era, but sadly and eerily reminiscent of it -- is still resonating through South African society and politics.
Much has already been written and said; with funerals, trials, public inquiries and attempted mine-reopenings ahead, much is yet to be done and said, including at the level of national politics.
Yet since this is a blog called 'Private Sector - Public World', I feel obliged to offer some further insight. After all:
* The shootings -- and the week leading up to them -- illustrate the complex blurring, by no means limited to South Africa or indeed mining, between what is a labour relations issue (involving government-regulated processes, but in essence a matter between the employer and workers) and a public order one; between an issue managed simply by mining private security and a serious policing issue; between pay-related demands on one particular site and politics-related debates at a national level.
* This area of the country has seen mines develop at a far faster pace than the provision of related social infrastructure; much of what is provided for workers, families and hangers-on comes from the firms themselves. Well before the shootings, the Rustenberg area threw into sharp relief the duties and dilemmas of firms and governments in providing public goods -- in relation to a sector (platinum) highly vulnerable to significant global economic downturn.
[In the most recent post, I'd speculated whether a possible wider downturn across mining sectors would result in increasing frequency and intensity of protest action, as margins narrow (for firms) and expectations are dashed (for existing or want-to-be staff) -- see here].
The above factors suggest Marikana is a test case of what it means for a private firm to operate in the very centre of the spotlight of public concerns.
Yet it is not clear to me what one can sensibly add, in terms of the subject-matter of this blogsite, to the various media and commentator reflections to date on the Marikana shootings.
One risk to avoid is armchair / analyst arrogance. At the office during the last few weeks we've forced ourselves again to note how 'resolving' the Syria crisis is not simply a question of policymakers seeking analytical clarity and then acting accordingly: the issues are hard, hard, hard; events run of themselves, with multiple considerations and variables; we know far less about the future than we like to pretend.
So it is with my thoughts about Marikana for this blog ...
... For clients' purposes, we are obliged to offer what insight we can about what this means, for instance, for near- and longer-term ANC politics, or debates on mining sector transformation in South Africa (on which see past posts on nationalisation and resource nationalism, e.g here).
... For the purposes of this blog, is it enough to say that Marikana shows that, all analysis put aside, the issues arising for private firms operating in an inevitably (sometimes starkly) public world are sometimes just hard, hard, hard?
Admitting as much is not just an act of easy abdication of the role of analyst. It is a reminder of the difference between armchairs and hotseats.
Boardrooms need armchair analysts -- potentially valuable sources of dispassionate objectivity -- but the most visible and vital intersections of business and society will often occur at close range, move quickly, and -- yes -- be truly difficult.
Jo
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