London Mining Network stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and the international protests against racism and injustice following the murder of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis Police Department.
You do not have to look far to see the link between the mining industry, British colonialism and modern systemic racism. It is through the extraction and exploitation of natural resources from Asia and Africa that the British Empire was able to fund its expansion and export its white supremacist ideology. From Cecil Rhodes’ land grabs for mining operations in the 1870s, to the murder of striking Marikana mineworkers in 2012, the plunder and destruction of Indigenous lands, to the forced eviction of African-descent communities in Latin America it is clear that Black lives have never mattered to those who profit from mining.
Today, mining companies trading their shares on the London Stock Exchange continue to profit from resources extracted from land that was stolen from Black and Indigenous communities for the benefit of almost exclusively white shareholders. They continue to subject those communities to human rights abuses, workers’ rights abuses and environmental destruction. Racism is not just coincidental to the global mining industry, it is key to its foundation.
LMN’s solidarity aims to provide practical and material support to those harmed by London based mining companies and who are resisting a model of ‘development’ that they do not want or need. For them to achieve justice for the years of injustice that they have suffered at the hands of companies intimately connected to our country, we must take on the work of anti-racism and amplify the voices of people resisting white supremacy.
Please follow the Black Lives Matter website and Black Lives Matter UK Facebook page for more information on the movement.