Gear guy!)
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 day
Jeremy Clarkson – London Sunday Times
Every 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”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article5
821586.ece
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