Siege from Within: Day and Night in Johannesburg

I was driving through an area of Johannesburg that, a week earlier, had burned during riots, when I realized I had a flat tire — and I wondered if I should get out and fix it. The fear that grew in my breast as I debated my options made me realize that in many ways South Africa is under siege, a nation at war with itself, and everyone is a victim.

I’m not referring to the recent bout of xenophobia; that is directed at foreigners from countries like Zimbabwe. And I don’t mean black/white hostilities, as in the apartheid era. There is still residual racism on both sides in the country, but that is sadly to be expected after so many years of institutional racism.

Today the war is about personal security, and the issue is crime. Depending on whom you talk to, Johannesburg has the first or second highest crime rate in the world. The rest of South Africa is not far behind.

Nearly every South African, black or white, has a mugging story to share. Here are some told to me on this trip:

“I was accosted at knife point by a man who took my wallet.”

“My garage has been broken in to four times in the last month.”

“I awoke one night to hear sounds coming from my daughter’s bedroom. I stepped into the hallway and a stranger stepped out of her bedroom. Fortunately my daughter was visiting a friend that night, and they only took a few things.”

“My daughter was accosted at gun point. She handed over her purse immediately, but even then the man shot her in the stomach. Fortunately, she survived.”

That little word fortunately alludes to the fact that some victims are not so fortunate.

The sense of insecurity is visually reinforced everywhere you go. Middle and upper class homes are surrounded by walls, topped with barbed wire or pointed metal spikes. Homes and shops that are not enclosed have iron bars across the windows, and iron gates that protect the doors. Billboards in some neighborhoods shout “Criminals Beware!” warning them off by proclaiming special police or private security protection. (It doesn’t seem to help. I am staying at a bed and breakfast not far from such a sign. All the same, this B&B has not had Internet access for weeks because thieves have stolen the cable running to the house three times in the last few months. The copper in the cable is worth the risk to them.)

Guidebooks and locals give lots of advice about how to keep oneself safer (there is no talk of avoiding crime altogether):

Do not walk around outside after sunset, anywhere.
Carry money in your front pocket.
Do not leave packages or purses sitting on the back seat of your car. When you are stopped at a stoplight, someone might break your window, reach in, and grab the item.
When you come to a stoplight behind another car, leave enough space in front of you in case you have to make a quick getaway from an assailant.
Keep alert. Scan ahead as you walk for potential signs of trouble.
Did I mention not going outside at night?

It’s that last rule that has been impressed upon me the most. I expected when I drove around at night that there would be roving gangs of men ready to assault my car at every intersection! Not at all, because the warning applies to all — black, white, men, women — so that there are very few people out at night, although a fair number of people do still drive

If, during the apartheid era, the government had imposed a curfew that so limited movement after dark, it would be considered a most repressive law. But the criminals of South Africa have essentially imposed such a curfew, and everyone seems to accept it as normal.

Despite the crime, there is a kind of normalcy here. It’s not as if people walked around in abject fear, women clutching their purses, men packing heat. (Though I take it that many South Africans carry weapons: it is not uncommon to have a security check at a mall, and to have a “gun room,” where weapons are stored before you go meander through the mall.) But while people look like they are going about their business in an emotionally stable state, I can’t help but think this wears on them, this siege mentality.

As for this tourist/visiting journalist, the emotional climate makes me suspicious of nearly everyone I see in public. It prompts actions that are not altogether rational.

As I said, my wife and I were driving through Jeppestown, on our way to visit an AIDS hospice where my daughter is working. Jeppestown is a neighborhood in Johannesburg where a week ago one of the early anti-immigrant riots took place. I was making my way through the neighborhood — passing shops (some open for business, some boarded up), a handful of burned buildings, and men standing on corners (the unemployment rate in such areas can be as high as 60 percent, although the national average is about 24 percent, according to the CIA) — when my steering wheel started pulling right. Soon, there was a definite bumping sound coming from the right front wheel. I knew I had a flat.

Normally, I’d have pulled over and fixed it immediately rather than keep driving and risk destroying the tire. This time, I kept driving. Whether it was racism or wisdom I cannot say. My experience with the South Africans I have met has been positive and convinced me that the vast majority are decent, law-abiding people who will reach out to help a stranger. But at that moment, those memories were blocked, and the advice I’d been given kicked in. It seemed to my small imagination that if I stopped to get out and even look at the tire, every man out there would pounce on me and my wife.

I drove another eight blocks to the hospice, the pounding of the tire becoming ever louder — it began to sound as if the car would fall apart — and finally, in great relief, pulled into the gate. The tire was shredded. I put on the spare, and later that day went to a tire shop to have it replaced; I wasn’t going to drive anywhere without a spare. My fear cost me $70. In any other circumstance, I would be outraged at paying the equivalent of $280/hour just to be behind a spiked gate. In this case, I think it was a bargain.

Anxiety wears, and occasionally drops, the mask of normalcy here, where Christians are called to minister to their fellow citizens. Not all are up to the task. Some, both black and white, collapse into the safety of a purely “spiritual” ministry — that is, religion that has become an escape from the world. Some Christians with resources say that life in South Africa is unbearable, and they move to England, Australia, or the United States (brain drain is an ongoing issue here).

I asked one semi-retired Cape Town-area pastor (the father of the daughter shot after being mugged) why he stays. He spent the first part of our interview cataloging the many problems South Africa faces: horrendous unemployment, declining education standards, government corruption, tribalism, racism, uncontrolled borders, and crime. He says he regrets but understands why so many Christians leave, but he cannot. He feels called to stay and minister here.

Everyone is a victim of this war of crime (not a war on crime, because at this point the country does not have the political will or finances to combat it but only to adjust to it). But as this former pastor — who still has an extensive ministry in his denomination — not everyone takes on a victim mentality.

Like Oasis, a U.K. ministry that has staff and five gap-year youth (like my daughter) working in Johannesburg, in places like Jeppestown, and in shantytowns around Johannesburg. Churches such as Table View Assembly of God (Cape Town area) and Seeker’s Tower (south of Johannesburg), and ministries such as Lerato’s Hope (Cape Town area), offer food, HIV testing, and health and literacy programs to those in need. (I’ll write more on such ministries later.)

South Africa may be a country under siege, but there are enough Christians who refuse to hide and hunker down that it gives hope that the oppression will be lifted one day, if not soon. for like siege warfare of long ago, these things can take a long time to resolve.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and is on assignment in South Africa.