[BenLurkin]

Never bring an Assegai to a gunfight...

Rueters photos / links ONLY

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02312/mine-spear_2312705c.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02312/mine-spear-2_2312700c.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02312/mine-drip-_2312699c.jpg

[spetznaz]

South Africa has always been a powder keg. Comparing it to, say, Nigeria and Kenya (the other African countries that are economically ok) it is actually in a worse position. By this I do not mean poorer, because SA is a wealthy country on aggregate, but the level of wealth disparity is not only large but very obvious. In Kenya and Nigeria there are people who are very wealthy, but they tend to agglomerate together ...the most people will see is pictures of large homes every now and then and maybe the odd Bentley. But in SA it is very obvious, and there is also a huge underswelling of racially-charged tones that have been quietly getting larger and louder. In Nigeria and Kenya the wealth is owned mostly by blacks (e.g. Dangote in Nigeria, who is also the richest man in Africa) ...in SA it is mostly by whites, a point that certain portions of society have taken upon themselves to emphasize (i.e. the social demagogues who rouse the rabble with such stuff - it doesn't matter to them that the rich SA blacks are even worse).

Anyways, the country is sitting on a veritable powder keg, and the day Mandela passes will be an important turning point. The country will be put to the test, and my fear is that - like how the Arab spring started when a fruit vendor slapped by police and losing his fruit cart lit himself on fire and sparked a conflagration that took out Ben Ali, Gaddafi, Mubarrak and Saleh - anything can serve as a spark in SA.

This could very easily be such a spark.

[blueunicorn6]

“Freeeeeeeeeee Nelson Mandela..........Freeeeeeeeee Nelson Mandela.”

[PGR88]

Send in Bono! He loves South Africa!

[pallis]

Another day, another powder keg, and another match!

[xeno]

I saw another unedited video of this incident. It looked like the police shot tear gas into the crowd of strikers. A group of the strikers ran away from the tear gas and toward the police. The police massacred them.

[Venturer]

Don’t be bringin’ no spear to a gun fight.

It’s easy to tell how dangerous this crowd was by the amount of casualties to the police.

Wait —34 dead protesters and not one wounded police officer?

Well that is a little disproportionate.

[Iron Munro]

Send in the Dancing Queens

[Bikkuri]

I didn’t go to the site to read the rest of the article.. but I did see the video last night... And, from what I read about it yesterday, this was after 2 police officers were hacked to pieces with machetes the day before..