Everyday I find more of these tomasons on the routes I travel. I am collecting them now - its like an obsession.
.......the tomason of access.
One can't really see them when driving - so I started walking. I became aware of the apathy with which we interact with the city - there is so much that we miss out on. We remain isolated in our cars, believed to be safe, travelling at high speeds from destination to destination. In the quiet and safety of our homes we criticize pedestrians, taxis, services, potholes, rubble, construction projects and beggars on the street corners. But they are the elements of the city as much anything else.
Most of us - I in fact- have been dealing with only a very small aspect of the city. We have created gated, walled, electrified havens for ourselves, where we believe we are safe and protected.
Alex van Tonder ( One Small Seed; issue 13, 34) says: ' City living gets a lot of negative press, but the truth is that it has its own natural beauty that for me takes the form of an ongoing converation with itself. A city lives and breathes; discovering, erasing and editing its opinions as its inhabitants discover, erase and edit their own."
I remember going to clubs, shopping and visiting friends in Hillbrow; going to movies, ice skating and shows in the city centre; eating at Park Station and Mama's in Yeoville and commuting fearlessly with busses since I was 12.
I want to be part of the city I live in again.
Wanting to be part of the city you live in is a very natural desire when people have spent so much time isolating themselves from the city as a means of survival in a changing landscape. Expansion brings contraction and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteLet me use the example of Europe again, as this is currently my reality. After WWII Europe became a continent of many small countries - many divided by unnatural and intellectual borders. After the fall of the USSR, the same happened.
Nations big and small went looking for shelter behind their "walls", so much so that they became paralysed by their isoloation. They became ineffectual against the new super powers and the emerging super powers. They realised that they had to "unite" to survive. The Eurozone was born.
Now, with the economic crisis also hitting the Euro, countries are standing together to bail out their fellows, to survive. Albeit sometimes begrudgingly, everyone is coming out from behind their fortifications and lending a helping hand. They are becoming part of the continent they are living in again.
What an excellent parallel. Of course we in Joburg are still hiding behind our high walls and even higher tech security systems. As Vladislavic described so well - our arriving at and leaving home, our going to bed and waking up are all about arming and disarming equipment succesfully, without causing an armed response.
ReplyDeleteBut there is a slow moving towards taking back our streets - more people are walking (albeit with dogs/tazers), cycling, jogging. In our street we are all working to be the eyes for better security. We talk and interact with regular street parties. But there remains a huge lack of trust and respect between people - especially the haves and have-nots. (The real ears and eyes, our workers do not attend the parties!)
In Europe many lessons were learnt through the horrors of the wars - and the Europeans have worked hard to build up new levels of trust through the accommodation and acceptance of differences . They are also so much more sophisticated.
There is still so much more learning, education, development and growth needed in all of South Africa, not just Jhb. We must accept each other's differences on all levels, and stop being threatened by it. But losing this fear (and accompanying anger) implies you have to feel safe and secure. Chicken and egg.