Marikana presented familiar images -- singing protesters dancing in the faces of uniformed, well-armed police, who deployed with cannon and armored vehicles, and were followed by shots and slowly settling dust. Not surprisingly, the South African government and its defenders reject the comparison. The national police commissioner defended her officers, noting that the strike had been violent -- even deadly -- before the police arrived. On the day of the massacre, miners were armed, some with spear-like assegais and machetes. They had marched on the police voicing "war chants." To be sure, the state had the preponderance of power, but this was not Sharpeville.

Yet, in its catalyzing potential, in perhaps forcing South Africa to confront a serious social ill, Marikana might still prove to be something like the post-apartheid state's Sharpeville.

After the 1960 massacre, South Africa was kicked out of the international community: condemned at the United Nations; eventually excluded from the Olympics. Those killed at Sharpeville had been protesting in the name of freedom of movement and democratic participation in their national future, touchstones of the UN charter and of international human rights. The Cold War complicated the politics, but the world seemed largely to agree that the South African government was beyond the pale. Time and struggle undid the legacy of Sharpeville; a generation later, South African athletes featured prominently at this summer's London Olympics, a clear reminder that South Africa is once more welcomed within the community of nations.

Human rights and democracy are wonderful and the world justly celebrates South Africa for having attained them. But the years since 1994 have demonstrated that poverty and inequality can be far wilier foes than white supremacy. South Africa was white supremacist, but it was also characterized by a particularly brutal form of capitalism, with few or no protections for workers. That latter hasn't changed much. In the days since the massacre, Lonmin has ordered the miners back to work without adjusted wages; the company's public statements have fretted about what it means for their shareholders' bottom line. In the years since 1994, state violence against protesters has been frequent -- witness the 2011 police killing of schoolteacher Andries Tatane during a protest calling attention to squalid conditions in townships. In post-apartheid South Africa, Marikana was not aberrant; it was just excessive.

South Africa is now essentially a "normal" democratic country dealing with issues that, however extreme they sometimes appear, are not actually so unique: economic inequality, labor rights abuses, corporate irresponsibility. These are not South African issues, they're democratic issues. Because South Africa was the last hold-out among the 20th century's legion of racial and colonial states, and because its liberation movement took place after the international consensus on human rights and non-racism had already emerged at least at a rhetorical level, it is often treated as an exceptional case. This may have been true under apartheid, at least to some extent, but it is no longer.