It’s tough being a Joburg citizen at this moment — let alone a devout one. If, like me, you’re a City of Gold slicker who’s railed against the always sizeable bunch of naysayers for decades, you’ll understand what I mean.
Once, many moons ago, it was irritating, but easy enough, to stick up for this chaotic metropolis when someone made flippant comments about Tuscan complexes or “the crime”. “You just don’t get it,” we’d profess, “Joburg has its own kind of beauty, and the people are fabulous”.
But those were the days of cranes crowding the Sandton skyline, when international tourists hung out in hipster Maboneng and our landlocked economic heartland seemed that it might, in fact, be self-actualising into the long-promised, gilded African oasis of 21st-century global success.
This, it turns out, was a mirage.
Today you can drive between Northcliff and Rosebank during load-shedding and over those 10km, not one traffic light works. When the power is on, you’re lucky if 50% of them do. Between these endless, unofficial four-way stops you dodge a deluge of dongas and pass pavements mangled by repeated excavation and just left like that — holes in the earth, seemingly destined never to be filled.
A few weeks back, the FM reported on the city’s R300bn infrastructure backlog. Between disintegrating roads, load-shedding and Joburg Water being unable to supply swathes of the city — despite our supply dams being full — conversations among the previously optimistic have devolved into ranting and weeping. Soon enough, most discussions tail back to the merry-go-round of self-serving incompetents notionally “running” our town.
It’s heartbreaking to admit that the Joburg-bashers might, in retrospect, have had a point, given this bleak landscape. Are we on track for a future in which we live inside a gargantuan pothole, swaddled in our Louis Vuitton apparel?
It was during one of my more morose meditations on this topic (the frequency of which is increasing) that I went on a Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF) walk.
This volunteer organisation is responsible for the blue heritage plaques you see on certain buildings across the city. If a structure is architecturally or historically significant, it knows about it, and it wants the public to know too.
These cobalt badges of honour are displayed proudly on spaces ranging from former ANC president AB Xuma’s house in Dube, Soweto, to the art deco beauties of the Killarney flatland. Being proud of built heritage is not just for affluent cities such as London.
These signs are just one part of the JHF’s raison d’être. Since the mid-1980s, it has been championing the preservation and restoration of some of the city’s most important structures.
Originally called the Parktown & Westcliff Heritage Trust (because it worked in that area), its reach is much wider today. This is the organisation which fixed the roof at St Alban’s Anglican Church in Ferreirasdorp, but which also raised hell in 2008, when Imperial swaggered in and flattened Milpark’s historic Rand Steam Laundries.
Perhaps not all is lost for Joburg — even if, once again, it’s the spirit of civil society holding us back from the brink
Right now, however, it’s the lone voice railing against the illegal destruction of the Herbert Baker-designed Crown Mines head office off Main Reef Road, as well as the shocking stripping of the iconic Rotunda building at Park Station.
Yet despite this, city (and Gauteng province) officials are unlikely to do anything meaningful about either instance. More likely, they’ll continue to ignore this gradual crumbling of the city’s heritage — and it’s this delinquency which contributes to the maudlin mood in the city.
It illustrates why the JHF is so critical. And at the centre of it is its inimitable chair, Flo Bird. Pity the property developer who lands in her sights.
But it’s not all pickets at demolition sites. The JHF hosts a calendar of affordable walking tours for the public too, from visiting randlords’ houses to looking at cemeteries.
It was on one such tour, of Northcliff, that I was able to rekindle my residual optimism for the city.
Here we listened to Johann Naudé, son of anti-apartheid activist Beyers Naudé, speak about his father’s vital role in the suburb. It was here, at the Aasvoëlkop Dutch Reformed Church, that Naudé gave his famous sermon in 1963 denouncing apartheid, which led to his expulsion from the NG Kerk.
After hearing about that, we legged it up the considerable hill under a canopy of jacarandas, alongside a troop of 40 other fascinated Joburgers.
We stopped at Helen Suzman’s old house, and then the blue mansion which belonged to Fred Cohen, who founded the suburb. All of which foregrounded the beautiful spaces, and good people, woven into the city’s cultural tapestry.
It was a much-needed reminder that perhaps not all is lost for Joburg — even if, once again, it’s the spirit of civil society holding us back from the brink.
When you think it’s as bad as it could get, just imagine a dystopian future where institutions such as the JHF wouldn’t be around to fight for the rest of us.
Buitendach is a contributing editor to the FM
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