Three hour tour of Johannesburg

 Johannesburg is big. 200 square miles, 50 townships,

6 million people. It’s a young city founded in 1886

when gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand.

The province is named Gauteng, “Place of Gold”

Our three hour tour began at the airport.

Just outside the parking garage, a nine meter

tall statue of Oliver Tambo,  holds a book

in his outstretched right arm above his head.

The title is rendered by pierced bronze letters.

The sky shining through spells out the words

The Freedom Charter, an historic document

of the Congress of the People which he

helped to draft in 1955. Tambo went into exile

in 1960 where he continued his political work

for 30 years until his return to South Africa in 1990.

Our first destination was Nelson Mandela Square,

twenty miles northwest from the airport through

the outskirts of Johannesburg on multi-lane freeways

to the gleaming glass and steel-towered corporate

and financial district eight miles north of the

distressed “old” central business district.

On the way, our guide and driver, Tsholofelo, whose

name translates to Hope and Trust, gives us the

statistical and historical background of the city.

On our left, the township of Alexandra, perhaps

the very poorest district in the city. On the arterial

street that takes us to Sandton, some of the traffic

signals have been looted for their copper. As we get

closer to Mandela Square, more of the signals function.

Tsholofelo says it’s because Johannesburg is the

next host of the G20 conference in November.

We see a lot of streetscape and infrastructure work

underway, but completed by November? May it be so!

Onward and southward, to Lower Houghton, a leafy

neighborhood of big houses on big lots. Each house

is completely surrounded by walled gardens and 

stout gates. We see the house where Mandela lived

after he became the first black president of South Africa.

It is also where he died. His grandchildren lived there

for a time after his death but a dispute between family

members and the Nelson Mandela Trust resulted in

neglect and abandonment. One of his grandsons

was arrested there in a police raid that found a stolen

car, drug paraphernalia, and an unregistered gun.

The house remains a shrine for Mandela’s many

admirers who leave messages inked on small white

stones at the base of the trees outside the walls

along the street. The legacy of Mandiba, -the name

his  supporters knew him by- deserves a better tribute.

Up through Parktown to Constitution Hill Human Rights

Precinct where the country’s high court is located.

There were three prisons here, the Old Fort for whites,

the infamous Number Four for blacks, and the Women’s Jail.

Mahatma Gandhi was jailed here. Mandela passed through

here too, first as a lawyer, then as a prisoner and finally

as the President of South Africa. Across the street from the

former Women’s Jail is the Center for Gender Equality.

Down the hill to the old Central Business District,

old being a relative term in a city that had barely

existed at the beginning of the 20th Century.

I think it's worthwhile to keep in mind, that the

legal system known as apartheid was not formed as 

the result of a coup, it was the result of an election in 1948.

The Group Areas Act followed in 1950. Some truly evil things

can be created with the consent of a popular vote. y’know?

Especially when who gets to vote is constrained.

Not to put too fine an edge on the sword, universal

suffrage is crucial to the viability and life of democracy.

And that is not a panacea either, as we saw when

we arrived to the streets of the old Central Business

District. It’s hollowed out. Like a mouthful of teeth

where one tooth after another has been destroyed

by decay. On block after block, downtown buildings

have been abandoned by their owners, windows

broken, power and water shut off, not even a very

desirable place to squat. Back in America, it was called

white flight. When the whites fled to the suburbs.

It’s pretty stark in central Jo’burg.  After apartheid

was abolished, South Africa was suddenly a more

attractive place for undocumented immigrants from

other countries on the continent who were leaving

much poorer economies than South Africa, even with

all of it’s inequities. At least one would not be

arrested on the street for being a person of color

in the whites only districts. Officially of course,

but even that marginal difference created a magnet.

Old central downtown businesses and citizens fled

to the north, to the Sandton district and other suburbs.

There are still some holdouts, mining company offices.

Many property owners have just walked away, leaving

perfectly good buildings behind. Nature abhors a vacuum

and that has been filled with drug dealing and other hustles.

Not as if we haven’t seen that closer to home.

There is a huge rail yard adjacent to downtown with

hundreds and hundreds of abandoned railroad passenger

cars. Some service is still operational but there are many

ghost stations throughout the country that have

been stripped for scrap metal. Jo’berg exists because

of another metal, gold. Now it’s a source of stolen

copper. This is not a poor country by global standards,

it’s middle tier. The division between have and have nots

though is extreme.What does the future hold for

this amazing multicultural country? Can its diversity

be a resource for lifting up all of its people? As we left

downtown and headed north to our suburban hotel,

I noticed people here and there dressed all in white

or pale blue. I asked our guide, Tsholofelo, who they

were. He said it was Sunday and they were dressed

for church. He grew up going to church, but now

had to work on most Sundays and had two young boys

who like to do other things so he didn’t attend anymore

but he knelt and said a prayer of gratitude every day.

His youngest son is named “We are Grateful” because

there was a middle child who was lost to miscarriage

and “this guy” as he referred to him was a blessing.

We spent a peaceful night at our hotel and departed for

Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe in the morning. We pray for them.