Visit Johannesburg – go on, you’ll love it!!
I may live in the cold and clammy climes of London, England (one of the world’s greatest cities). But I was born and brought up in Johannesburg, the city of trees (more than any other urban area in the world), afternoon thunderstorms (the most number of air to ground lightning strikes of any urban area in the world), and Africa’s economic heartbeat. I love cities. I love Johannesburg most of all.
It’s a dangerous place, to be sure. You can’t be stupid, and you have to stay awake. But if you do, it’s one of the greatest places in the world. Check out a previous post about this. But, don’t believe me. Jeremy Clarkson, BBC journalist and famous host of the greatest car show on earth (Top Gear), has had his say on the city of my birth.
From The Sunday Times
March 1, 2009
I dare you to visit Johannesburg, the city for softies
It’s the least frightening place on earth, yet everyone speaks of how many times they’ve been killed that dayEvery city needs a snappy one-word handle to pull in the tourists and the investors. So, when you think of Paris, you think of love; when you think of New York, you think of shopping; and when you think of London – despite the best efforts of new Labour to steer you in the direction of Darcus Howe – you think of beefeaters and Mrs Queen.
Rome has its architecture. Sydney has its bridge. Venice has its sewage and Johannesburg has its crime. Yup, Jo’burg – the subject of this morning’s missive – is where you go if you want to be carjacked, shot, stabbed, killed and eaten.
You could tell your mother you were going on a package holiday to Kabul, with a stopover in Haiti and Detroit, and she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But tell her you’re going to Jo’burg and she’ll be absolutely convinced that you’ll come home with no wallet, no watch and no head.
Jo’burg has a fearsome global reputation for being utterly terrifying, a lawless Wild West frontier town paralysed by corruption and disease. But I’ve spent quite a bit of time there over the past three years and I can reveal that it’s all nonsense.
If crime is so bad then how come, the other day, the front-page lead in the city’s main newspaper concerned the theft of a computer from one of the local schools? I’m not joking.
The paper even ran a massive picture of the desk where the computer used to sit. It was the least interesting picture I’ve ever seen in a newspaper. But then it would be, because this was one of the least interesting crimes.
“Pah,” said the armed guard who’d been charged with escorting me each day from my hotel to the Coca-Cola dome where I was performing a stage version of Top Gear.
Quite why he was armed I have absolutely no idea, because all we passed was garden centres and shops selling tropical fish tanks. Now I’m sorry, but if it’s true that the streets are a war zone, and you run the risk of being shot every time you set foot outside your front door, then, yes, I can see you might risk a trip to the shops for some food. But a fish tank? An ornamental pot for your garden? It doesn’t ring true.
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?
Next year South Africa will play host to the football World Cup. The opening and closing matches will be played in Jo’burg, and no one’s going to go if they think they will be stabbed.
The locals even seem to accept this, as at the new airport terminal only six passport booths have been set aside for non-South African residents.
At first it’s baffling. Why ruin the reputation of your city and risk the success of the footballing World Cup to fuel a story that plainly isn’t true? There is no litter and no graffiti. I’ve sauntered through Soweto on a number of occasions now, swinging a Nikon round my head, with no effect. You stand more chance of being mugged in Monte Carlo.
Time and again I was told I could buy an AK47 for 100 rand – about £7. But when I said, “Okay, let’s go and get one”, no one had the first idea where to start looking. And they were even more clueless when I asked about bullets.
As I bought yet another agreeable carved doll from yet another agreeable black person, I wanted to ring up those idiots who compile surveys of the best and worst places to live and say: “Why do you keep banging on about Vancouver, you idiots? Jo’burg’s way better.”
Instead, however, I sat down and tried to work out why the locals paint their city as the eighth circle of hell. And I think I have an answer. It’s because they want to save the lions in the Kruger National Park.
I promise I am not making this up. Every night, people in Mozambique pack up their possessions and set off on foot through the Kruger for a new life in the quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets of Jo’burg. And very often these poor unfortunate souls are eaten by the big cats.
That, you may imagine, is bad news for the families of those who’ve been devoured. But actually it’s even worse for Johnny Lion. You see, a great many people in Mozambique have Aids, and the fact is this: if you can catch HIV from someone’s blood or saliva during a bout of tender love-making, you can be assured you will catch it if you wolf the person down whole. Even if you are called Clarence and you have a mane.
At present, it’s estimated that there are 2,000 lions in the Kruger National Park and studies suggest 90% have feline Aids. Some vets suggest the epidemic was started by lions eating the lungs of diseased buffalos. But there are growing claims from experts in the field that, actually, refugees are the biggest problem.
That’s clearly the answer, then. Johannesburgians are telling the world they live in a shit-hole to save their lions. That’s the sort of people they are. And so, if you are thinking about going to the World Cup next year, don’t hesitate.
The exchange rate’s good, the food is superb, the weather’s lovely and, thanks to some serious economic self-sacrifice, Kruger is still full of animals. The word, then, I’d choose to describe Jo’burg is “tranquil”.
Source: The Times
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To declare my perspective, I am one who semigrated from Johannesburg (which I love for the people / relationships)to Cape Town a year ago to give my kids a life beyond walls. Not a decision reached lightly AT ALL.
That said, this is Clarkson drivel at its best. He loves controversy and frankly got really boring/irritating in latter books too. When he isn’t brit bashing he must need distrations, and is actually South African bashing instead.
I would love for his ignorant view of Joburg (like, how long has he
LIVED there, actually?) to be true. but people do get
killed/assaulted/raped for cellphones and less, every day etc etc
I would prefer to read the opinion of a more informed commentator than a (well-marketed and arrogant) motoring journalist (for pete’s sake!) who clearly stayed at the Michaelangelo, ate at Lekgotla, was driven to and from The Dome via Grosvenor Crossing, Leaping Frog and Lifestyle Garden Centre……(ie not exactly urban or even suburban Johannesburg). (One should review some of John Simpson’s writings or ‘Simpson’s World for a more balanced view).
I have received this article from several friends, and enough already!
Jeremy,
I suppose it is a symptom of the schizophrenic character of Johannesburg that those of us who love the city (or even those who don’t, but have to live there) jumped on Clarkson’s latest rant.
It’s good news that he raised Joburg’s profile in The Times, and hopefully will have done something for those who are considering attending next year’s World Cup.
I now live in London. Since arriving here, there have been more burglaries in my London street than ever occurred in a street I lived in while in Joburg. BUT – and this is a BIG BUT – no-one was killed, or even looked at with intent in London. If my wife and children were to arrive home and interrupt a burglary in London, the thieves would leg it out of the house and disappear. We all know that in Johannesburg, my wife and kids would be caught, bound and gagged, roughed up and worse… I shudder to even think of it.
Joburg is not as bad as some people make it out to be. And, if you know where to stay, how to drive, and keep ever vigilant, you’ll probably be OK.
And, yes, the reason Jeremy Clarkson didn’t feel he needed armed body guards is that he HAD armed body guards.
Joburg is a strange place. It is the most serene warzone on the planet. It is the most beautiful crimezone in Africa. It has an energy about it, some of which is fuelled by a constant low level anxiety…
Clarkson may not have seen all it’s sides.
But let his vision be our dream. It is possible.
This thread may be cold already, but I just read the original blog and wanted to add my five cents worth.
Being an ex-Jo’burger who also happens to think that Jo’burg is right up there as one of the greatest cities in the world, I enjoyed reading a positive article for a change by a foreign journalist, be it somewhat tongue in cheek – and even if he is just a motoring journalist.
I live in Lampang, a small town, in peace-loving, alms-giving, Buddhist-dominated Thailand. In front of me is the local weekly rag. The main headline story, replete with glossy colour pictures, is about a guy who, for no apparent reason, had the top of his head taken off by a machete-wielding neighbor. The next story, also with glossy colour photos, is about a young lady, a passenger on a motorbike on her way home late one night last week, who was shot and severely injured by a gang of youths on motorbikes. Robbery was not a factor in any of these incidents – they were merely random acts of violence. These are normal stories in the papers here every week, in a town of 100 000 people – you don’t even want to know what happens in Bangkok where 12 million people rub shoulders every day!
Yes, Johannesburg is violent, the crime capital of the world etc, etc. But the reality is that there are people with evil intent all over the world. You could get hijacked in Johannesburg or you could get blown up in a bus in London.
I don’t for a minute want to downplay the severity of the problem in Jo’burg, but it was great to read Clarkson’s “drivel”. Good on him for daring to give another perspective.
Hey Nick, another society where we can pray that the peace which exceeds all understanding can come to pass as society is penetrated by the love of God and his kingdom.
PS Our neighbourhood watch has just rebranded itself as “Patrolling for Peace” rather than “farting crime” (apologies to Tony Leon of SA fame). Cool angle.