16 April 2020 — Solidarity
Patrick Bond
Shoppers queue outside a grocery store during a 21 day nationwide lockdown, aimed at limiting the spread of Covid-19 in Soweto, South Africa, March 30, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko)
It’s hard to imagine a more worrying place to watch Covid-19 hit a society than Johannesburg, South Africa.
This is, after all, the world’s most unequal major city, serving as economic headquarters for the most unequal country. In spite of a poverty rate (at $2.80/day) of more than 60 percent and a national unemployment rate of 40 percent before the current crisis, the labor movement is now considered (by corporate elites) to be the world’s third most militant (although its political divisions are profound). And the capitalist class is rated (by PwC) as the world’s third most crime-prone and corruption-riddled.
The death of the 110-year old mining house Lonmin at a London shareholders meeting on May 28 occurred not through bankruptcy or nationalisation, as would have been logical at various points in time. It was the result of a takeover – generally understood as a rip-off of investors and workers – by an extremely jejune (7 year-old) South African corporation, Sibanye-Stillwater. The latter’s chief executive, Neil Froneman, is known for extreme aggression in both corporate takeovers and workplace cost-cutting, with by far the highest fatality rate in the mining industry.
