British broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson on Johannesburg:
“… Look Jo’burg up on Wikipedia and it tells you it’s now one of the most violent cities in the world . . . but it adds in brackets “citation needed”. That’s like saying Gordon Brown is a two-eyed British genius (citation needed). Honestly? Johannesburg is Milton Keynes with thunderstorms. You go out. You have a lovely ostrich. You drink some delicious wine and you walk back to your hotel, all warm and comfy. It’s the least frightening place on earth. So why does every single person there wrap themselves up in razor wire and fit their cars with flame-throwers and speak of how many times they’ve been killed that day? What are they trying to prove?”
This will certainly piss off the expatriates.
Sean, you are wrong to say it will only piss off the expatriates, surely? When I first arrived in Joburg (for a year long stay) at the end of 2007, I, too, said it was a tranquil place and that people had exaggerated. I have always loathed the sea of white South Africans in London, feeeling they should stay put and stick things out back home when things get tough. But after a year, I had to accept that I no longer felt any of the above.
In the dept where I was based, there were five deaths and brutal attacks againts either very close friends or immediate family members of my colleagues. That worked out, I think, at about 20% of staff having a violent assault or murder taking place within their immediate circle. This cut from the cleaner-turned-assistant secretary to the head of the department. It was cross class and colour. While I was there, a close friend of mine was saved from a violent assault/murder/rape (who knows how it could have ended) when the five men trying to break into her apartment were shot at by a neighbour. Three were injured, two got away. She remained alive.
I’ve lived in many places that are deemed dangerous by outsiders – Hackney in London (which always makes me laugh!), Abidjan Ivory Coast, Luanda Angola, and I’ve stayed on the Eritrea/Ethiopia border in a hut. I’ve also hitchhiked across central Europe to Hungary, passing through areas of hookers and truckers, and survived. The only single place I feel I really don’t ever awnt to go back to – I’m so sorry to say this – is South Africa. It IS a beautiful country, and there are some beautfiul people. But it IS very dangerous. And depressing.
I wish I didn’t think that.
AS for Jeremy Clarkson: he is a man who is obsessed with cars. Joburg is a city for car drivers. No wonder he loves it. I will rub my hands, though, when he is carjacked. And I will, I swear, laugh. He has not got a clue.
Lara,
I supposed my one-line editorializing on Clarkson was feeding of his humor. He is clearly tongue in cheek. I also think–and I know he comes across otherwise as a bit of a lad–his intention was to deal with the sort of absurd nonsense we hear when people talk about Joburg. I agree about Joburg being very violent and am well aware of how violent and murderous it can be (I have some personal experiences, including a friend who was brutally murdered). And yes, I take your point that the violence does not discriminate and that most of its victims are black and poor.
Joburg certainly has an obsession with cars,at least for those that can afford them.Just go along William Nicoll Drive into Town and the car dealerships are strung along to strut their stuff.Lamborghini’s,Ferrari’s,name them ,they are all there.Mostly to sit in congested traffic anyhow.What I found interesting about this article though ,was the responses,generally very positive and uplifting.Very different from the usual whining.Without hope there can be no light!
I agree on the responses.
Who would’ve thought a spin doctor and not a soccer player would kick-off World Cup 2010?
I might have admired this farcical spin job in the face of incontestable evidence to the contrary – if it wasn’t such a supercilious and callous slap in the face of all South African crime victims and their grieving families.
The absolutely ridiculous hypothesis in The Sunday Times column is that local citizens “falsely” project Johannesburg as dangerous – because they want to save lions from aids! This is about as convincing as Jacob Zuma saying healthy men cannot contract aids by sleeping with an infected woman. The supporting , if contradictory, theory in the above report is that all major world cities have a key symbol and Johannesburg is using crime “to pull in the tourists and the investors”.
Is this for real? Is his target audience sensible and sophisticated adults or a comedy club?
The writer uses sarcasm to boast about his armed escort tours throughout the city and then egotistically proclaims crime must be a fiction of the imagination because, after all, nothing happened to him!
Well Mr Clarkson, unfortunately the young IT manager renting in Midrand was not as lucky as you. He was shot dead yesterday at 7-15am. His attackers fled with a mobile (cell) phone. Neither was Willie Klopper a week ago when armed robbers tied him to his car, doused him with fuel and then set him alight. Klopper died of burns to 100% of his body. The robbers fled with his mobile phone and a wallet.
Is that the “snappy one-word handle” Johannesburg needs to put it on the map? Do you think the young IT Manager and Mr Klopper agreed to become a “serious economic self-sacrifice” to save lions from aids? No! They were brutally, barbarically murdered despite both pleading for their lives!
This is the human face of the crime tragedy in South Africa. It places in perspective the 76 murders in the single police division of Johannesburg Central for the period April 2007 to March 2008. Gauteng has 130 policing divisions (or police stations)… You do the sums.
It represents the human misery perhaps not as evident in stark statistics such as 88.3 rapes per 100,000 population (2007); 485.1 assaults with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (2007/08); 228.7 common robberies (2007/08); 526.1 robberies with aggravating circumstances (2007/08); 647.2 residential burglaries (2007/08). These figures are not the total number of incidents, but a percentage of 100,000 of the population in a single province, namely Gauteng! These are official statistics, which is reported crime not actual crime.
Describing this as “tranquil” is akin to twisting a knife in the guts of those already reeling from the brutality of crime and its ghastly aftermath. It is a shocking piece of journalism and I express my deepest sympathy to all South Africa’s victims of crime and their families who may have had the misfortune to read this.