Zukiswa Wanner pays homage to a city where the contradictions of violence and Ubuntu seem more marked than perhaps anywhere else.
Africa's urban landscape is changing at an unprecedented pace, offering a glimpse into its future. "My City", a series of personal essays, portrays the lives of individuals and communities across the continent, exposing the deep soul of each city and giving it a distinctive character.
At around 2pm on a Saturday in mid-December, my Zimbabwean friend and I are passing by Park Station in Johannesburg's Central Business District when we're stopped by police. Amid throngs of passengers looking to board long-distance buses or taxis to towns across South Africa and beyond, they demand to see our papers. My friend shows them his. I, with the cheekiness of a citizen, ask the officers to show me their IDs first. They're taken aback but do so before I reveal mine.
A little later, as we pass Park Station again, we notice that those police officers have now gathered together a small crowd. Undocumented migrants. "Since you all do not have your documents, you will have to pay R200 [about $11] each to continue on your journey or go to Lindela," we hear the policeman tell them.
Lindela is the centre where undocumented migrants are detained before being returned to their home countries. People can spend days, weeks or even months there before deportation.
There is never a good time to be expatriated, but two weeks before Christmas is an especially bad time. Here, as in most of the continent, December is lit. It is when the parties happen, when bonuses are spent as though there shall not be any school fees or rent to pay in the 62 days of January. It is when relatives who usually treat each other like strangers become best buddies. No one with any sense or cents would want to spend December at Lindela.
There are mumbles from the crowd, but Mr Policeman is not relenting. "You can't be in another cowntry without the necessary documents. Those with the R200, stand this side," he orders.
The majority move to where he has indicated. His partner swaggers up to them and collects monies from each of the moneyed.
Those remaining are looking panicky. Lindela at any time is not ideal. Lindela in December is hell. But they are soon relieved. Once all the money has been collected, the policeman turns to the unmoneyed. "You without money, you can go," he says. "All of you can go. Tsamaya. Happy Christmas!"
As we say in South Aah, issa movie.
We have just witnessed official Johannesburg Afrophobia with a soft touch.
Sometimes it doesn't go so well for the undocumented. The city has a high youth unemployment rate, prompting some graduates to stand at traffic lights with signs telling the public they have an engineering degree or any other host of professional experience. Amid these frustrations, Afrophobic organisations like Operation Dudula place all the state's failures squarely in the hands of "illegal migrants" who they accuse of "taking our jobs and women". Because apparently both capitalist companies, who employ undocumented migrants so they can pay less than minimum wage, and women ("our women") have no agency.
But this Johannesburg is also where citizens find interesting ways to respond to the Afrophobes. I remember during the tragic xenophobic attacks in 2008 that led to at least 62 deaths, South Africans in my mixed working class neighbourhood in southern Johannesburg volunteered to travel with their migrant neighbours, whether by giving them lifts or journeying with them on public transport. Or how, in 2010, a day after a video emerged of four young white male students - dubbed the "Reitz Four" - forcing black workers to eat food laced with urine, my neighbour had her bag snatched by a white man. A group of neighbours - a mix of South African, Mozambican, Ghanaian, Cameroonian and Nigerian men - caught the assailant in the park. They beat him and made sure the contents of the woman's bag were intact before handing him over to the police.
The contradictions of violence and Ubuntu that define South Africa seem somewhat more marked in this city than elsewhere.
Johannesburg is where South African students stood arm-in-arm with other African classmates during the #FeesMustFall protests to insist that fees for Africans must be below that for students from the Global North.
Johustleburg is, in some ways, just another African city with the same hustle, energy, potholes, and extreme poverty beside vulgar wealth that one finds in a Kinshasa, a Lagos, or a Luanda. But in some ways too, Johannesburg is distinguished from those cities by its sidewalk cafes, highways, and a seemingly higher presence of Europeans than its coastal rival Cape Town.
Or just Joburg to locals.
One might look at Johannesburg as a hell on earth and, yet, some marketer called it A World Class African City.
Which it is.
For all its dysfunctionality, Johannesburg is also incredibly fantastic and a place in which I find succour when I am out of sorts. I spoke about this to my 18-year-old niece and 75-year-old great aunt and they both agree.
Earlier this year, I broke my leg and needed an operation. In Johannesburg, I did not need to worry about medical aid or borrowing money from friends to get healthcare. In other African cities I have lived in, public care is so dismal that having money is the difference between life and death. A public hospital means either waiting days and even months before being admitted. Even then, one needs some funds for admittance, even in South Africa where the healthcare is at least available. In my case, in Johannesburg, I just asked a friend to drop me at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, where I arrived with a book because I knew from previous experience that public hospitals get crowded. I was soon given a card, then wheeled to get X-rays, had my leg reset, and by the end of day I was all ready for an operation.
In the hospital, despite the little pay, the medical staff was professional. The other patients, some of them non-citizens, joked with me frequently. By the time I was discharged a week later, I felt as though I was leaving not only my family of patients but my family of medical staff who, no matter how tired they may have been, responded to our calls for assistance with speed and generosity.
Johannesburg is also perhaps one of the greenest cities I have ever lived in. Whether I am in Soweto, Melville or Sandton, if I am babysitting younger nephews or nieces, I need not worry about how much money I have and can safely pack some sandwiches and juice and take the kids to the park, where I can push them on swings or have them play a game of soccer with other children.
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And then there is the culture. In Johannesburg, not doing anything is a choice because there is always something happening. Musical concerts, theatre performances, literary festivals, fashion shows, or art exhibitions. With support from the City of Johannesburg, a fair share of the cultural events are often available for free. You just need to know where to look.
The legend is true: Johannesburg is indeed A World Class African City.
A city where NGOs from the Global North and major companies in Africa prefer to set their headquarters. Jozi's very Africanness is never that far from the surface.
In one day, you can go from eating in a Mozambican restaurant in Rosettenville to buying medicine from the Kwa Mai Mai Traditional Market to being chastised by a taxi driver at Bree Taxi Rank in the Central Business District for asking where you want to go without having greeted them first. That evening, you could be dancing to Lingala beats before your Zimbabwean Uber driver, Trymore, drives you to your home in Fourways. You may get stopped by a traffic cop from Johannesburg Metro who, on finding out Trymore does not have a licence to carry passengers, will look at him and say "coldrink?", a code for a bribe.
Johannesburg, with all its faults and beauty, faults and beauty accepted by those who call it home, is a city that elicits either intense hatred or passionate love. But one thing is always true: Johannesburg is impossible to ignore.
Zukiswa Wanner is an award-winning South African journalist, novelist and editor.
