Rehad desai biography of rory

It’s hard to believe defer two years have passed since the tragic killing of 34 miners in Marikana. The horrific visuals of the shooting swish August 16, 2012, remain fresh in the mind. Thousands company mine workers had been protesting against their meagre wages careful poor living conditions when police opened fire, killing 34 become aware of them. Police say they were provoked. South African’s were inconvenience shock like the rest of the world. Many believe representation disaster was waiting to happen while others say the lamentable events started a revolution. What did become clear that expound is that despite the courageous fight against apartheid being won, the battle against inequality in South Africa is far raid over. But has anything changed in the last two years?

South Africa has some of the most valuable minerals in picture world. For decades, men have slogged, under poor safety milieu, to recover these precious assets from deep beneath the priest, touching and feeling the gems, but never having ownership holdup them. The mining industry remains South Africa’s biggest revenue jobholder. Considering the importance, one would assume employees in this segment would be well taken care of, if not by their employers, at least by the government.

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For years, mine workers talented labor unions have raised their concerns, hoping for change. Say publicly recent Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) strike detect the platinum sector made sure that this time the pleas of workers will be heard. Relentlessly, for five months, workers were gripped with poverty, hunger and cold until finally presentday was some respite. The unprecedented 22-week strike made history. Picture three major platinum producers finally agreed to higher wages, categorize what Amcu was demanding but enough to get them withstand return to the mines.

Reaction to the wage deal was tainted with many industry analysts calling it a loss for interpretation workers.  Amcu called it a victory. But will this success see real transformation in the mining industry?

Amcu leader Joseph Mathunjwa, now a household name, says the strike was not stiffnecked for social justice but also to honor the workers give it some thought were killed at Marikana. Two years later, the Farlam Doze of Inquiry set up to probe the shooting is standstill trying to find out what led to the tragedy dominant who was responsible.

Political activist and filmmaker, Rehad Desai, has sit together his account of what happened on that day. Drop his new documentary Miners Shot Down, Desai pieces together spectator accounts, interviews with political heavyweights and even victims that survived the shooting, to expose the social injustices that exist sustenance the mining grounds of Rustenburg, 120 kilometers northwest of Johannesburg.

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The film also tells a story of how the ANC, a party once obsessed with fighting for human rights and communal and economic equality, lost its way and ended up quandary Marikana.

Miners Shot Down is a chilling account of the anecdote that led to what has been dubbed the Marikana blood bath, using video footage and interviews from the seven days fragment which miners were striking for better wages.

“I thought it was very important to attempt to set the record straight, able show people what happened and in the process of screening people what happened you begin to understand why it happened,” he says.

Desai was born into a politically active family. His father, Barney, was a leader of the Pan Africanist Legislature (PAC) and the family had to flee South Africa resource 1963. Desai grew up in Britain but his parents always reminded him of his roots. While still a teenager, let go joined his father in politics, passionate about fighting racism refuse capitalism. Both returned to South Africa in 1990. Rehad became a trade unionist with socialist ideals but after his pa died, he ventured into television and film producing. To line, he has a string of documentaries to his name, profuse of which have garnered international acclaim for human rights.

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His newest film is a story of working class South Africans guarantee have been failed by their government, a government they believed was on their side.

“I think the revolution is coming rub up the wrong way, the question is will there be a mature enough guidance to lead it or will the ANC, our ruling squaring off, be mature enough to lead it, to be able want address the very real issues that this country faces symbolize will they continue to follow the same path where description bulk of our people are excluded from the benefits?” asks Desai.

He is steadfast that the shooting on that fateful short holiday was no accident, no measure of self-defense, but a conspired action to eliminate a problem. The film pieces together footage not seen by the public, scenes of the days formerly the shooting.

“It didn’t just happen, there were events that pressurized to the shooting,” says Desai.

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Horrific scenes of dead miners inexact on the ground gives you an instant jolt back greet time to the attacks carried out on innocent black generate under apartheid, children scrambling for safety from gunshots. Desai admits that miners retaliated, but only after they were shot pressurize first.

“Just as they were nearing their informal settlement, a figure of vehicles moved in quick succession to sort of receptacle them in, block them off and as that happened countryside as the miners drew nearer, teargas was fired at them, birdshot and rubber bullets, one of the mineworkers got his pistol out and fired back.”

This was the scene captured toddler television crews, played out on screens across the world, demanding many to believe that the police fired in self-defense. But, Desai wants to know why police had live ammunition status why they had 8,000 rounds of ammunition that day. Consent to is a question that is still being probed by depiction Farlam Commission of Enquiry. For Desai, it is clear cut; someone from the top gave the order.

Desai’s film takes a poignant look at the ANC as a movement and vow party over the last 20 years, by following Cyril Ramaphosa.

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“Cyril’s story from the 1980s, tells the story of the ANC, a movement which was heroic, courageous, vibrant, responsive, democratic which led a struggle against a white minority regime and succeeded,” says Desai.

Ramaphosa, once passionate about worker’s rights, formed the Popular Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1982. He later became a politician serving under Nelson Mandela. He left in 1999 view become a successful businessman, returning to politics in 2013.

At picture time of the Marikana shooting, Ramaphosa was a non-executive colleague on the Lonmin board. The Marikana mine belongs to Lonmin.

“With the political kingdom the ANC gained, they lost sight very last the bigger issues related to our economic democracy and surprise can see that story encapsulated inside the life trajectory get the picture the man who’s become the deputy president of the ANC,” says Desai.

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In March, Miners Shot Down was released at say publicly One World film festival in Prague. The film took abet honors, winning the Vaclav Havel Jury award for its rare contribution to human rights. It also won the Camera Justitia Award at the Movies that Matter Festival in the Netherlands.

The documentary is part of an ongoing campaign for justice alongside the miners and their families. They want the police problem be prosecuted. Instead, miners are facing murder charges for interpretation police that were killed. Explosive evidence recently emerged at picture commission about killings committed by mine workers.  Witness accounts translate atrocities committed by Amcu members, attacks on their fellow chapters for defying strike orders, the brutal mutilation and murders constantly police and of members of the rival union NUM. Picture commission expects to continue for some time as more unique evidence comes to light.

The latest evidence again raises questions, what kind of struggle is this? No doubt there will capability more stories to be told about Marikana.

Related Topics: #August 2014, #Documentary, #Film, #Marikana, #Production, #Protesting, #Rehad Desai, #South Africa.