Reporter's Marikana notebook: A thin line between fear and hate

Saturday should be the best day of the week. One gets to sleep in. See friends; do some shopping; have a long, slow coffee. Feel good about life, the universe and, if not everything, at least most things. But not if you live in the settlement of Nkaneng, a cluster of shacks just a stone’s throw from Wonderkop. If you happen to be one of its residents, you spent this Saturday running away from teargas, dodging rubber bullets and swinging between fear and hatred for the police. Or feeling mostly both. By BRANKO BRKIC, The Daily Maverick

One can think of few, if any, better companions to enter the township limits of Nkaneng than Greg Marinovich, his fearless wife Leonie and the researcher Thapelo Lekgowa, the one who originally unearthed the murder field of Small Koppie while doing a survey with the UJ professor Peter Alexander.

The events of Saturday morning, before we arrived, filled the world of Marikana with heavy, dark clouds. Police raided the miners' hostel and homes overnight, looking for arms and confiscating several. These were not firearms, mind you, but rather sticks and, at a push, pangas or machetes. As we were approaching, headline news on the radio was that the police also broke up a gathering of 200 or so protesters, using teargas and rubber bullets.