“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” This is a common idiom which speaks to the lived realities of communities affected by mining and their reliance on the extractive industry to drive social cohesion and economic change.

For more than 150 years SA’s mining economy has been the cornerstone around which the colonial exploitation of our collective wealth has been anchored. The industry has generated enormous profits for a few individuals and has kept millions of others dependent on the crumbs that fall from the master’s table...