Violence at the end of the rainbow

Abstract

South Africa presents contradictory images—that of a miracle of reconcilia- tion, the Rainbow Nation, and that of societal decay, evidenced by the police shooting of thirty-six mineworkers at Marikana in 2012. It is important to explore how these threads are connected in South African society, where structural violence is replicated under conditions of major and democratic political change. While the specific case is South African, the interactions are typical of other societies. This case illustrates, however, the nature of what Tani Adams refers to as the “chronic violence” that afflicts certain societies, in which multiple factors—such as racism, social inequality, environmental damage, the migrant labor system, and what Tani Adams refers to as “disjunctive democratization”—work to ensure both the continued reproduction of vio- lence and its role in enabling the enrichment of corrupt elites.