There has recently been a new addition to the haunted Louis Botha death bend, bringing to the community a whole new array of bright colours and strong opinions.
“Dumela,” greets 23-year-old Mahlatse Sachane as he climbs into the taxi and settles into his favourite window seat directly behind the driver.
Knowing that most of the passengers will probably get off soon, the young man from Alexandra anticipates a slow commute to Johannesburg while the driver hunts for more customers.
After checking the time on his phone, the professional ballet dancer retrieves a book from his rucksack and makes himself comfortable. Then the door to the taxi slams shut and the journey along one of Johannesburg’s most famous transport corridors begins.
The business street of Louis Botha Avenue, which connects the residential area of Alexandra to the Johannesburg CBD, originated almost 150 years ago as a wagon trail. Since then it has, however, been paved, albeit poorly maintained, and now hosts a constant surge of bustling vehicles on their commute to and from the City of Gold.
Like many other residents of Johannesburg, travelling along Louis Botha Avenue is Sachane’s week-day morning ritual. On his daily commute to work, he usually finds himself absent-mindedly observing the endless stream of hooting taxis as they drift across the faded road markings, passing decorative traffic lights along the way. At other times he would rather read his book than wonder about the various pedestrians weaving between the Louis Botha street vendors, who have set up shop on the broken sidewalk.
At any given time during daylight hours, one is sure to find at least 10 pedestrians walking along the mural, often right up against the wall to shade themselves from the scorching sun, while a discarded plastic packet undoubtedly gets whisked down the sidewalk by the never-ending breeze blowing from an easterly direction down the hill. Photo: Stephanie Schaffrath
A breath of fresh air
Recently there has, however, been a shiny new addition to the sidewalk of Louis Botha Avenue, creating a divide in opinions among members of the community. As of 2019 a majestic wall reaching 8,5m in height now borders the bustling street, running along the extent of the infamous Louis Botha S-bend, also colloquially referred to as “death bend” for its high accident rate, which has caused countless fatalities among drivers and pedestrians over the years.
Measuring 451 metres in length, this “urban monstrosity” (as some label it) successfully separates the properties of prestigious Upper Houghton from Louis Botha Avenue and adjacent Bellevue, subsequently improving the resale value of those Upper Houghton properties. In an effort to disguise the so-called blatant intrusion commissioned by the City of Johannesburg’s Department of Transport, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) contracted Trinity Session, an art organisation responsible for the #ArtMyJozi project, to complete a mural art work on the wall’s bleak 2 800m² concrete surface.
#ArtMyJozi is a project responsible for enhancing recently upgraded areas through art that represents the communities residing in those spaces. Likewise, in creating the Louis Botha S-bend mural, Trinity Session did their best to involve the public in the planning and execution of the project.
“The brief for us was to implement an art work that was painted, and to tell a story of the evolution of the city and suburban Johannesburg,” said co-director of Trinity Session and coordinator of #ArtMyJozi, Stephen Hobbs. He added, “The wall was receiving a lot of criticism from the public for being this very offensive urban form, so the idea was for a large-scale mural to uplift the face of that concrete wall, and if the narrative could speak to the broader issue of Johannesburg, then it might have relevance to the public.”
Leading up to actually painting the wall, multiple open meetings were held at Spark! Gallery, just 3km down the road from the S-bend. At these meetings, members of the public were encouraged to discuss ideas and sketch their own designs. Then a makeshift wall was curated and the designs were further revised ‒ ten times over.
About six months later, two artists started sketching the final design on the wall’s surface, after which the wall was primed and a team of about 15 artists and various assistants spent three weeks bringing the sketches to life, starting at the top of the S-bend hill and telling the story of Johannesburg in chronological order as they went down the hill.
“As soon as people started putting art on the wall, it gave (the wall) a completely different feeling,” said Sachane, who has been riding along Louis Botha almost every day since 2012. He added, “The art took it from being a wall that divided people to a wall that symbolises hope — it gives me hope at least because it is so gorgeous.”
The big reveal
With the main theme of the art work being transportation, the Louis Botha S-bend mural was unveiled on October 1, 2019 in celebration of Transport Month, and it has since become a landmark for the avenue and its cultural heritage.
Despite the work’s representation of blissful unity and shared culture, however, the S-bend wall is arguably more of a divider than it is a medium for public expression and communication.
“I am generally opposed to walls,” said Norwood Oaklands Residents’ Association chairperson Brett McDougall, who went on to say that building a wall, in his opinion, went against the City of Johannesburg’s vision of knitting together communities through the Corridors of Freedom, an initiative that aims to transform the city by overcoming entrenched spatial issues created during the years of apartheid.
To achieve this, the city has responded to the challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment by identifying Johannesburg’s main transit corridors and upgrading them to improve public transport services, provide housing along these routes and create further work opportunities. In doing so, the aim is to alleviate the distances between jobs and houses for most people living in Johannesburg, who spend an average of two hours a day commuting.
Among these is the Louis Botha Development Corridor, which has been identified as one of Johannesburg’s main transport routes.
ABOVE: Coordinator of the S-bend Mural project, Stephen Hobbs, and two South African graffiti writers shed light on Graffiti culture in Johannesburg within the context of the commissioned S-bend mural and unwarranted graffiti art on Louis Botha Avenue. Produced: Stephanie Schaffrath
In troubled waters
That being said, the avenue has its very own musical ensemble of screeching brakes, rumbling trucks and hooting taxis, creating an atmosphere entirely unique to Louis Botha’s sidewalks. But if you listen very carefully, you may also hear the splashing of water as the local recycling guys, who can be seen dragging their trollies weighing up to 250kg up the hill every Wednesday, take a dip in the Sandspruit along the road to cool off before continuing on their trek.
Given that the spruit flows mainly underground from its source in Bellevue, it only briefly appears above ground next to the Louis Botha sidewalk before ducking under the road and forming the Orange Grove Waterfall on the opposite side. The waterfall is, however, very well hidden in the corner of the derelict Police Reservist property in Upper Houghton.
“It is unfortunate (that all this money had to be spent on building a wall), when these millions could have perhaps been better deployed in restoring the Orange Grove Waterfall and working with stakeholders to create a public open space for local residents,” said McDougall, who is also the former chairman of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation and frequently hosts guided walks along parts of Louis Botha and its surrounding areas, including a visit to the waterfall.
The silver lining
Despite robbing the waterfall of its much needed restoration, the S-bend mural seems to have also brought a sense of renewed hope to this drab area.
“I find the wall fascinating because it captures South Africa as a whole,” said Sachane, who especially likes the vibrant colours and versatility of the images.
Even nine-year-old Zac Segal, who attends King Edward VII School, located just one block from the start of the S-bend mural, was intrigued by the art on the wall.
“We don’t really think about it when we are at home, but when we see it, then we just want to look at every single thing on the wall,” said nine-year-old Zac Segal, who stares eagerly out of the window to spot his favourite artwork every day on his way to and from school. Photo: Stephanie Schaffrath
As he sat in the back seat of his mother’s air-conditioned car, he stared intently out of the window until he found his (current) favourite painting of a man holding an orange to symbolise the area’s history as an orange farm. Upon spotting it, he rolled down the electric window and excitedly called to his mother to look at the painting.
“I am glad it’s not an orange farm anymore,” said the grade three scholar when he found out that the surrounding area, including his home in Fairwood, used to be farm land. “I wouldn’t want to eat oranges for the rest of my life.”
Zac’s mother, Anya Segal, said he and his 11-year-old brother, Skye, often point out and discuss the art on their way home from school. “Every day they spot something new,” laughed the 44-year-old. “Personally, I love the art work because it’s done so well and it brightens up Louis Botha, which is quite a drab area as it is.”
When Segal arrived home from fetching Zac, her domestic worker, 37-year-old Tobeka Notyowe, was there to greet them and help carry the groceries inside. When asked about the mural, Notyowe, who walks past the wall every day on her way home to Soweto, said, “It’s quite catchy. When you walk past, you just cannot miss it.” With a smile, she added, “There is a message there and that is what I like most of all, because it tells the story of our history.”
Similarly, Suku Ncube, a domestic worker in Bellevue, said, “I see myself in these paintings, especially in those pictures of the ladies carrying things on their heads, because that is what African women do.
“I do it all the time,” added the 30-year-old, explaining that she can carry a 20-litre bucket of water on her head without using her hands.
Thirteen-year-old Bianca Kambaji, who had just hopped out of a taxi and was on her way to school, seemed more interested in the representations of South Africa’s more recent history.
“I like the art work at the bottom of the hill most of all, because it sort of speaks about me as an individual. I love music, so the lady listening to music and the man making music are my favourites because music is something we all listen to.”
A great divider
While most people seem to have responded positively to the art on the S-bend, the wall itself has created a major divide within the community.
“We were not aware that there would be a ceremony to unveil (the mural), nor were we invited,” said chairperson and treasurer of the Upper Houghton Residents’ Association, David van Heerden. “We were not involved in the project at all.”
ABOVE: Despite feeling proud of the artwork they produced, artists commissioned to paint the S-bend mural were conflicted in doing so. Graffiti writers and mural artists are often commissioned to upgrade an area through art, which, in turn, usually involves the covering up their friends’, and perhaps even their own, graffiti. This goes against graffiti ettiquette but is a saccrifice graffiti writers make to earn money. Photo: Stephanie Schaffrath
The COO of a manufacturing company and resident of Houghton, Tereza Martins, said, “I think the whole idea of having a mural along that wall is great, although personally I find the colours quite heavy and dark in some places.” She went on to say, “There is so much doom and gloom in daily life, so I think they should have rather done a more happy and vibrant-looking mural.”
Martins said her husband would have preferred a plain white wall to the graffiti-style art, because he thinks it encourages defacing of property in the area. “We live in Houghton and one thinks that Houghton should have a more professional look,” she said. “But in saying that, I tend to disagree because this mural is about Louis Botha, not Houghton.”
On the other hand, the manager of Sasol Houghton, Jeru Eric Leutwetse, was very pleased with the new wall and its art. “The wall has changed the image of the street in a good way,” said the 37-year- old, who added with a chuckle, “I like it too much, I almost wish they had made it longer.”
The corridor to freedom
Despite the controversies surrounding the wall and its commissioned art, the Louis Botha community seems to agree on one thing: that the area needs to be uplifted. For many, the Louis Botha Avenue region has become a place to be avoided because of its badly maintained roads and high crime rates.
For some, Louis Botha Avenue might simply be the fastest route home, but for someone like Sachane, the avenue is much more than just a grimy corridor of urban decay and irresponsible driving. For this young man from Alex it symbolises a journey from his humble beginnings as a boy living in the township to a man with a promising career as a professional ballet dancer in the big city. For Sachane, Louis Botha Avenue represents his corridor to freedom - and the mural is simply a reminder of that.
FEATURED IMAGE: ABOVE: These broken sidewalks have, however, recently been revamped, bringing a splash of coulour and new life to this busting Johannesburg transport corridor formerly characterised by its urban decay and illegal businesses. Photo: Stephanie Schaffrath
A new documentary about #FeesMustFall, which delves into social issues faced by South Africa’s youth and measures them against expectations for the “Rainbow Nation”, will be broadcast on MTV on Thursday evening.
The Wits academic staff union have pressed ahead with their planned strike today, after last-minute negotiations yesterday failed.
Members of the union, ASAWU, have gathered at the entrances to Wits main campus in small groups, holding signs that read “We love Wits, do you?” and “Stop imposing – negotiate.”
Member of ASAWU and Senior lecturer in the School of Mining and Engineering, Carl Beaumont, said,“Our aims for today are to get our message across to Wits University management, that staff have had enough. We’ve had enough of managerialism, we’ve had enough of imposed pay-rises and poor salaries. It’s something that’s been brewing for years, not something that’s just happened in 2012.”
David Dickinson, President of ASAWU (pictured above) said, “People have to stand up for their rights, and more importantly they have to stand up for the good of Wits University. We believe the management is running this university into the ground.”
Management announced a 7.25% increase for academic staff, but the Administration, Library and Technical Staff Association (ALTSA) and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) have demanded a 9% increase.
ALTSA and NEHAWU, as well as Academic Staff Association of Wits University (ASAWU), also made non-wage related demands in a memorandum to management.
The three unions demand:
– a 9% salary increase for support staff, to be paid at a higher scale at the 75th percentile of the tertiary education sector benchmark – decent salaries to be given before performance regulations were initiated; – a resolution of the dispute on shift allowances – an agreement on sliding scales to advance equity – the establishment of a childcare facility for Wits employees – an end to overselling of parking permits in non-designated parking areas; – an increase in individual research incentive
However, Wits vice-Chancellor and principal Prof Loyiso Nongxa says that meeting these demands are complicated, and formal investigations need to be concluded prior to reaching an agreement.
Nongxa said that Wits academics are missing the bigger picture in their fight for better pay and working conditions, in an article he wrote for Business Day last week.
A rally for staff is set to take place on the Library Lawns at 12:00.
A 20-year-old Wits medical student compiled a poetry album to share the lived experience of a black South African woman that is tired of shrinking herself to be palatable.
The Rainbow Nation is Black by Nonhlanhla Siwela is a poetry anthology which has also been released as a 19-track deluxe album which interrogates identity, race and gender.
The deluxe version was released on September 1, 2023 after the initial release of the 12-track album on September 25, 2021. The deluxe album is an extended version of the first and includes more poems while exploring three themes from the original book.
The first theme – white – includes the poems Our Boys and Cry, Black men, Cry which encourages black men to express themselves in a way that is not guided by patriarchy and social expectations. Siwela articulates this well in Our Boys, “When will somebody tell the elders that our boys are underage, that our boys are exactly that, just boys,” she writes.
A black woman’s trauma in a gender-based violence (GBV)-ridden South Africa was a topic explored in the second theme – grey. Using poems like: Bring Back Our Girls/Uyinene Is Not Dead; Only Love and My Biggest Fear as a guide, Siwela shared how a black woman’s life in South Africa belongs to anybody but herself. She went as far as saying that her biggest fear “is to die because somebody’s son thinks he is God”.
Through a poem titled I Wish, Siwela confronts her blackness as a South African woman. This is the last theme – black. Without wishing to be a part of any other race, she speaks of a blackness as a burden to her existence. As someone that went to St. Johns school for girls, she did not enjoy having to introduce herself by a nickname so it can be easily pronounced, yet children from other races never had to shorten or simplify their names for anyone.
A Young Poets Mind – as she refers to herself, started writing when she was 15 in 2017 at St. Johns Diocesan School for Girls in Pietermaritzburg. As a scholarship learner from grade eight till grade ten, she recalls how her mother would constantly remind her how grateful she had to be for that opportunity and “not be too Zulu [at St. Johns]”.
To her, this was a moment of realisation. “All this time I have had to make myself more palatable to the white system, even at my school. It felt like [the school] was doing me a favour,” she told Wits Vuvuzela. This is when the writing of I Wish began.
When Uyinene Mrwetyana was murdered, she started organising silent protests at her school and wrote a lot of poetry around it, including Uyinene Is Not Dead. “[The poem] was [recited] in assemblies at different schools in KZN, that is how much I saw my poetry impacting people,” Siwela said.
Friend and third year medical student, Paballo Mofokeng (21) described Siwela’s poetry as her introduction to a whole new world of the arts and culture. “I always associated the arts with classical music and all of that stuff, I didn’t think it could apply to modern kids and modern people, until Nonhlanhla,” said Mofokeng. “Also, the poetry that we did in school was not directed to black kids, [it] was not directed to black girls,” she said.
The deluxe album is available on all digital streaming platforms and serves as a multimedia companion to the text.
FEATURED IMAGE: Nonhlanhla Siwela enjoying a page from her poetry anthology, The Rainbow Nation is Black. Photo: Otsile Swaratlhe
An immortalisation of how the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu inspired South Africa to be a society where peace could prevail.
In her documentary, A Tree Has Fallen – Remembering Desmond Tutu, Swedish journalist Marika Griehsel shows the religious stance of the late Anglican archbishop on a politically-fragmented apartheid South Africa.
A compilation of archive material and interviews, this documentary is not only focused on the apartheid past but also includes present-day footage of children being asked to identify the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Its focus is on comparing the type of South Africa he imagined at the dawn of democracy to what the citizens are currently experiencing.
Tutu is famously known for the quote, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” from a speech given at Stanford University on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1986. In the documentary he is introduced to the viewer as a liberal Christian – he applied the teachings of the religion based on social needs rather than what is traditionally taught, such as staying strong in one’s faith and prayer while waiting for a miracle from God.
In A Tree Has Fallen, Tutu describes himself as someone who became a leader by default because the political leaders at the time were in exile. Griehsel does a good job reflecting this statement in reality by showing the viewer Tutu’s transition from standing in front of a pulpit at church to standing at a podium at political rallies, yet still in his Anglican church attire.
Through Tutu’s statements such as, “No human being is beyond the love of God,” Griehsel shows the viewer how the imagination of a “rainbow nation” – coined by Tutu for the post-apartheid multiracial South Africa – began as not only a call to unite all races but also Africans in their diversity.
In an apartheid society where Africans in South Africa were divided along tribal lines and by political affiliation, Tutu is shown emerging as a non-political, pro-peace preacher to the people of South Africa. This is coupled with some parts of an interview by the same producer of this documentary, Griehsel, done on behalf of the Nobel Foundation.
Students and staff watch A Tree Has Fallen – Remembering Desmond Tutu at the Wits school of arts cinema. Photo: Michael Jaspan
On Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at the Wits school of arts cinema, students and staff members had an exclusive chance to see the documentary before its unknown release. Griehsel told Wits Vuvuzela, “I think he is one of our times’ most inspiring leaders, like Nelson Mandela.”
Griehsel does well in visualising the close friendship between Tutu and the former president in the documentary. The use of close-up shots on footage of them holding hands after Mandela was released from prison; footage of their meeting during their pension years and multiple clips that have Tutu referring to Mandela are used as great indicators to the type of friendship they had. In one of the clips, Tutu is caught on camera referring to Mandela in a humorous way: “…he has a poor taste in shirts.”
In the Wits Vuvuzela interview, Griehsel continued to say, “I am very grateful that I was allowed to screen the film [at Wits] and I hope that it will inspire young people and those who have seen [the film] to ask themselves: ‘What can I do?’ ‘What is my role?’”
According to Griehsel, the compilation and production of the documentary began in 2001. With the help of a South African editor and principal photographer, Michael Jaspan, it screened for the first time at the September 2022 Göteborg Book Fair in Sweden.
Vuvu rating: 8/10
FEATURED IMAGE: Pictured at the screening of the Tutu documentary, on the second row, left, Minister Counsellor of the Embassy of Sweden in Pretoria, Christian Fogelstrom, and in front, the producer of the documentary, Marika Griehsel. Photo: Michael Jaspan
Milk the Beloved Country is a provocative historical exploration of South Africa’s past and present.
“I am not just reflecting on certain key episodes in our country’s story, I am at the same time questioning things that, to an extent, have not received the contemplation and deliberation they deserved.”
It has been just over a month since South African author and Wits business school graduate Sihle Khumalo’s book, Milk the Beloved Country hit the shelves in bookstores and e-commerce sites.
The subject of Khumalo’s newest book is a hybrid of travel and history, which begins by exploring the landmarks and names of South Africa through a historical lens. The book reflects on South Africa’s history and asks, “how did we get here?”
Ntokozo Ndlovu, South African Facebook book reviewer said the “interesting part of this book is about the naming of towns and cities” which makes for “thought provoking history”. An impressed Ndlovu said, “[Khumalo] is incapable of writing a boring sentence.”
The author’s approach to non-fiction utilises irony and humour as Khumalo mixes historical fact with myth, anecdote and controversial opinion. With discussions such as the failure of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), filling in gaps in South Africa’s colonial history and a name-and-shame approach to dealing with powerful groups such as the Broederbond, Khumalo confronts the reader with an uncomfortable deep dive into some of the issues which have been skimmed over in modern texts.
The image of the past which comes to life on the pages of this book is a multicultural, multifaceted history which describes our complex nation in a way that a chronological, fact-based timeline could not do, although the author’s interrupting and digressive style can at times be difficult to follow. As Khumalo writes, “History, like life, is complicated.”
In the context of South African history, Khumalo’s book is a refreshing antithesis to previous historical analyses of South Africa which tended to fall either on the side of Afrikaner nationalism (pre-1994) or African nationalism (post-1994) which discredited counter-ideologies and portrayed the historical as natural and inevitable. Khumalo examines the ifs, buts and maybes and the various available perspectives on the past.
The book also discusses the “power brokers” of our nation, including the heavy influence of the Broederbond during apartheid South Africa, the influence of communism in the formation of a new South Africa and the legacy of freemasonry in South Africa. Each of the topics are explored with nuance and a colloquial, conversational style.
Khumalo clearly is not afraid to hold up a mirror to our, as he calls it, “perfect-from-a-distance-but-very-structurally-shaky-rainbow nation” and explains in detail who is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today.
In reflection on the text, Khumalo asks vital questions such as, “When did the feeding frenzy on state resources begin?” to which he answers that South Africa’s corruption and nepotism problems extend so far back in its history, one might believe “we have always been led by rogues”.
In an interview with Polity, Khumalo said that his reason for writing this book is that he believes it is time, “to have open, frank conversations about the state of the nation…It is time that we hold our leaders responsible.”
Throughout the book, the danger of leaving out certain histories in favour of upholding the image of a rainbow nation is criticized by Khumalo, who writes, “Due to our obsession with the ‘rainbow nation’…and all those fluffy terms, we lose endless opportunities for having genuine national conversations and instead end up putting lipstick on a pig.” Khumalo’s retrospective on South Africa examines the whole pig in a witty and daring way.
Copies of the book are available online for R300 in its paperback form on Loot, and Takealot.
Vuvu rating: 7.5/10
FEATURED IMAGE: Sihle Khumalo’s Milk the Beloved Country soft cover. Photo: Kimberley Kersten
In-depth 2019: Louis Botha Louis Botha Avenue’s ‘Little Italy’: What is left of la dolce vita? By: Gemma Gatticchi Amid Louis Botha Avenue’s shift in demographics, a few businesses stand out as relics of the former Italian migrant community that made the area home....
South Africa is in crisis. In a very short space of time, a dense fog of violence has engulfed the country, unleashing countless acts of gender-based violence and xenophobia that have unravelled the rainbow in our nation. At Wits Vuvuzela we have been moved to dedicate this issue to confronting these two ills.
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
