It is difficult to be reasonable when referring to the Marikana disaster. 34 labourers left dead, 78 injured in a violent protest between police and labourers atop a hill near one of the wealthiest mines in the country. With national politicians, trade unions, bargaining councils, international ownership, foreign capital and local billionaires this together with impoverished squatter camps makes the search for any reasonable objectivity almost impossible.

Even when one does attempt to be objective, one's argument is immediately dismissed depending on that persons own race, class or any other discriminatory factor such as political affiliation. There are far too many interpreters amidst the confusion pretending to offer useful analysis yet preventing the facts from stating what is glaringly obvious. That is, that no one is innocent in this debacle, yet this is not immediately visible because the aura victimhood exists as a shroud to divert attention and cause confusion.

There is an insipid logic that underpins most interpretations in our public space when such an event is dealt with. It is a logic which assumes that whenever force but specifically deadly violence is used, it always belongs to a perpetrator. When we see people lying dead, we assume they have been put there by a violent even bloodthirsty perpetrator. Perhaps because of our violent history or perhaps from fear of being labelled anti-new South Africa, the dead are then taken as innocent victims. And innocent victims require violent perpetrators. In short it is a logic of the victim and it pervades our modern era.

What does this mean when we refer to a situation where nearly 50 men lost their lives? The first objection raised, was that the police, who fired the bullets are to blame, and in a strict sense the direct cause of the death of the labourers was indeed the bullets of the police. However, some mention this as if it could have been averted, that if the police were better trained then there would have been no deaths. This is the view of learned people such as Professor Steven Friedman, who says that such as situation doesn't come out of thin air.

It is easy to agree with the professor, indeed the deaths did not spontaneously occur. They were man made incidents. Yet the professor fails to see the larger picture, when instead of attempting to explain what happened, he implicitly asks, who is to blame for the victims' death? He states that if the police were properly equipped the result would have been different. By this I understand him to mean less or even no deaths. The fundamental premise being that the labourers died as victims of ill trained police which in this case makes the police the perpetrators. But this is not a just or fair process of logical enquiry. It asks who is to blame for the labourers'/victims' death, and not what happened that 34 men lost their lives? It is a false path of logical enquiry and it permeates our society leading to the never ending blame game or what can be commonly called scapegoating.

A far greater path of analysis would be to ask what happened, with the proviso that no man or group is innocent in the incident. For instance the police had been setting up a security camp not far when they were charged at by a large collective of men with pangas and assegais. The police responded with real bullets only after the plastic bullets and tear gas had failed to stop the marauding crowd. Which it must be added were by now in a state of mob ecstasy, with one report even mentioning that they had been "blessed" by a sangoma or medicine man with muti as if preparing for battle according to an archaic war ritual. It must be noted that the police encampment was charged not the reverse.

At this point we must accept that the label "labourer" had been forgone as it implies an economic function and status. The labourers had transformed themselves into an unruly disparate and violent mob who had intent to do massive bodily damage to the police. At such a point it is important to pause and recognise that the police were under no illusions as to the reality of the situation.

They had already dealt with the death of two security guards and two of their own colleagues. The situation was already violent and deadly. When staring into the deadly statistic of 34 dead it is easy to forget that it was the labourers' who charged the police. So any likening of this post-democratic situation to the 1970's/80's where police charged and fired to subdue citizens should be dismissed with contempt. Lets not pollute our current enquiry with false allusions to the past.

The fact that the labourers had become murderers is easily forgotten. One must wonder what the professor actually implies when he says this could have been averted were the police adequately trained! Does he mean a greater number of deaths should have been incurred? Claims that the police should facilitate dialogue are also ridiculous; they are not conflict reconcilers but enforcers of the law. As well they should be.

The police are not perpetrators in such a situation. They represent order and it is their de facto purpose to have maximum force in their maintenance of the rule of law. For if they do not, then, we as a community of South Africans descend into a lawless anarchy, a state of nature. No different from the beasts. It is important to recognise that the rule of law is in place for everyone, irrespective of race, colour, creed and religion. No one gets to attack an officer of the law, let alone use a threat of deadly violence and live to tell the tale.

The response by the state in such a situation must at all times be to fullest extent possible, complete and utter decimation of any such activity. This might seem too harsh and even blood thirsty, but what in reality is the alternative when the police cannot protect themselves never mind citizens of the state, a war of all against all?

This is forgotten by most analysts and surprisingly by the professor of political science - that the state must always have a complete monopoly on violence. This is first year university political science that every state analyst should know. Without complete state monopoly over violence, vengeance overwhelms the rule of law. However, the blame game does not stop there.

When moving from the premise of innocent victim the blame game did not end with the police, it continues unabated to include the minister of police and even the state president. One need not be a fan of President Zuma to realise that he and his government have become the unjustified scapegoat in this situation. The sheer number of "innocent" victims demands an ever larger and greater perpetrator to blame than the police, and who better than the president of the republic?

To decry the state of the land and the lack of presidential leadership in this situation reveals how the logic of the victim and scapegoat have penetrated our societal consciousness. By using hindsight it is almost impossible to identify where the president should have intervened. The question remains, what should the president or even the minister of police have done? Should they pause running the country to interfere in a labour matter of a private company?

We forget that in South Africa we have a constitutional sovereignty, in which the powers of the president are specifically limited. Such limitations provides the freedom for other spheres of activity such as trade unions, private corporates and yes even the existence of collectives of people whose agendas we might not personally agree with, yes even disgruntled labourers. We must not forget that before this horrifying death statistic the issue was essentially a labour matter, starting with labourers' demands of approximately 310% increase in their net salary. Such a demand is unheard of anywhere in the world.

However, if one moves from a position of victimhood, then such a claim can be justified, i.e. the labourers are victims of the economic system. It is the same logic that justifies the violent push against the police. With the claim that they, the labourers, were just "fighting" for their economic rights. It is strange that such violent behaviour can be legitimised when done in the name of avenging one's victimhood.

Behaviour that would normally be out right condemned is justified when done in the name of a victim. The logic of victimhood perverts our own ethical estimations which eventually leads us to ethical relativism. Where the only comment of such a situation is that, "it is extremely complicated." This is exacerbated when a clear perpetrator can be found and if not, then one can be created. This leads to the third and final dimension of this analysis, that of free will.

Too often victimhood creates a compelling argument in which responsibility and free will are negated. Too often this is the situation when considering the poor - that the poor cannot actually help themselves against the overwhelming beast that is the economic (meaning exploitative) system. This is an abnegation of rationality, of the fundamental proviso that all human beings are made equal and that each man and woman has free will, yes even mine workers.

The truth is that if we accept the principles of free will and responsibility that accompanies such a premise then the labourers with their pangas and assegais risk becoming far more foreign to the onlooker than is comfortable. Even to the self justified New Zealand NGO that condemns our government.

It is easier to ignore such behaviour, even justify it with the excuse that circumstances determine behaviour. In other words, that they were driven to such lengths and could not have done any different, and so everyone else is to blame. Firstly the police, secondly the government, thirdly the president and of course the evil corporate that is Lonmin. Everyone else is guilty, but the actual people who actually charged the police with menacing weapons and a belief in spiritual protection.

A scientific enquiry asking what happened and not who's to blame realises that these labourers had and have free will. That a second trade union had been created: The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) in opposition to, and in reaction to what was seen as the failure of the existing National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).

To recognise that union rivalry created this animosity and opportunistic persons took advantage of the situation leads us far closer to an understanding of what happened than if we had to justify one side and by implication blame another. The workers had rationally decided to create and support a new union that would be in their interests. Immediately the belief that they could alter their environment becomes clear, the problem is, that this hope was translated into violence.

What underlines the violence at Marikana where the police were forced to open fire is not poor economic conditions, although that might be a peripheral factor. It is not poor corporate leadership and communication of Lonmin, which admittedly was nonexistent. Nor was it presidential inactivity or poor police training.

Such a situation came about in South Africa today because a common belief is shared across the land that violence is justified if one considers him/herself a victim, violence then is justified! It is simply and purely the lack of a common national understanding that the law applies to all who live in the land and that violence is never condonable.

There is no difference between the Boeremag and the Marikana marauders, each held dear the belief that they were above the law. Each held dear that they are victims that have been unjustly wronged, and that by pure force (violence) they could change the world. The only difference being that the Boeremag were caught as they planned their violence over many years, whereas at Marikana the violence was more or less spontaneous yet no less rational.

Both groups are false victims and both deserve to be dealt with by the law and if that means ending in life sentences or death then so be it. A strong statement but it is the only one that seeks to contribute to and build our South African state. The tendency to apportion victimhood and then scapegoat chosen perpetrators in order to either justify or legitimise violence is tearing our society apart. In doing so it negates the fact that real victims exist in society but the marauding Marikana mob was not one such victim.

Leon Marincowitz is a philosophy lecturer at Monash University, specialises in studies of violence and reconciliation and writes in his personal capacity.

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