Albert Einstein is said to have described insanity as repeatedly doing the same thing in the mistaken hope of making progress and finding solutions to a problem. That, in our book, aptly describes how we as a society, and especially the government, have dealt with the challenge posed by illegal mining, which has been going on for decades now.
The latest saga making headlines in the long-running story of illegal mining is the stand-off at a disused mine in Stilfontein, North West, where a group of illegal miners, known commonly as zama zamas, have holed themselves down a shaft, refusing pleas by authorities to resurface and face arrest.
The story has made international news, featuring on such channels as Al Jazeera, where the unfortunate utterances of the Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni were prominently reported.
She has spoken of “smoking out” these miners. But abhorrent as they might be, these are humans, not rats. They may be a nuisance, these zama zamas, but they’re showing us up for what we are, a country growing increasingly lawless, thanks to the incompetency of those in government.
Ntshavheni’s callous pronouncements must surely rank alongside apartheid minister Jimmy Kruger’s declaration that Steve Biko’s death “leaves me cold”. It might have been meant to project a government getting tough with the zama zamas but it backfired horribly.
Her subsequent contrition may well have brought her reprieve but doesn’t remove the responsibility the government is still burdened with to deal meaningfully, and fairly, with illegal mining.
Elsewhere in this edition, we’re reporting on a suggestion made by the official opposition MKP to help sort out the mess. The party suggests that we seek to legalise the activities of the zama zamas by formalising small-scale mining, which would also help create employment.
The process would seek the input of mining houses, whose criminal abandonment and neglect of the mines have made their owners stinking rich while leaving the very people who toiled and sweated blood digging the precious metals barely surviving.
The endemic illegal mining we are witnessing is a by-product of the disregard for the law that required mining houses to rehabilitate mines once they were done extracting whatever they were mining.
Why is there no serious talk of pursuing the mine bosses and making them pay for their sins against the land?
As for zama zamas, it’s known that nature doesn’t leave a vacuum, and the fact that the sub-industry exists at all shows there is something to work on there, which should be to the benefit of society at large.
A formalised environment sans the laissez-faire element that is prevalent now will enable regulation, tax collection and order, all ingredients necessary for a stable industry that can only benefit society.
By seeking new ways to solve an old problem we won’t fit Einstein’s description of insanity.
