Marikana Massacre - New General Megathread for the 16th of August 2023
On this day in 2012, the Marikana Massacre took place when South African police fired on striking workers, killing 34 and injuring 76 in the most lethal use of force by the state in half a century.
The shootings have been compared to the infamous Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, when police fired on a crowd of anti-Pass Law protesters, killing 69 people, including 10 children. The Marikana Massacre took place on the 25-year anniversary of a nationwide strike by over 300,000 South African workers.
On August 10th, miners had initiated a wildcat strike at a site owned by Lonmin in the Marikana area, close to Rustenburg, South Africa. Although ten people (mostly workers) had been killed before August 16th, it was on that day that an elite force from the South African Police Service fired into a crowd of strikers with rifles, killing 34 and injuring 76.
After surveying the aftermath of the violence, photojournalist Greg Marinovich concluded that "[it is clear] that heavily armed police hunted down and killed the miners in cold blood."
Following the massacre, a massive wave of strikes occurred across the South African mining sector - in early October, analysts estimated that approximately 75,000 miners were on strike from various gold and platinum mines and companies across South Africa, most of them doing so illegally.
A year after the Marikana Massacre, author Benjamin Fogel wrote "Perhaps the most important lesson of Marikana is that the state can gun down dozens of black workers with little or no backlash from 'civil society', the judicial system or from within the institutions that supposedly form the bedrock of democracy."
Does anyone know of any good program to use for digital journaling? Right now I just do it on paper, but I type way faster than I write and my hand gets sore if I write too long, so I think that swapping to typing would encourage me to do it more often. Word is cumbersome to use, I guess I could use Google Docs, idk, any recommendations?
This is often due to death grip on the pen. A fatter pen helps, as does using a pen that doesn't need to be pressed into the paper; like a fountain pen or at least a roller ball. Ballpoints suck. Sorry I don't have any actual advice for what you're asking about, but I'm a pen nerd and not a computer nerd and liking fountain pens is like 25% of my personality.
Yeah I definitely hold it way too tightly, I always try to be more loose but as I get lost in writing I forgot to focus on it and then I subconsciously start gripping it really hard again. I've never frequently used pens though since I'm left handed and it can smear, plus I constantly make mistakes so I need an eraser. Pens are cool though, even if they're not for me
Fair :) A thicker pencil may still help. I have a nice fat brass one that I like, but I like heavy writing implements. Idk if brass is for everyone.
I use pens particularly so that I can't erase; I have to accept mistakes rather than chase the dream of perfection. One of the things I do to try to deal with perfectionism, it does help somewhat.