Welcome to Johannesburg, the world's most dangerous city with the world's most violent criminals

Because we're immersed in our situation in South Africa we think it is normal when someone says to us, here in Johannesburg, that they can have someone you don't like (or disagreed with) murdered.

The crazy thing is that this is happening between white folks. I remember in the bad old days when my sister had a drug problem, I made an errant comment about my father and the guy she was with said, "Want me to get rid of him, I can arrange it?"
Something similar happened to me recently, and someone said they could have my ex-landlady killed. Jeepers, is life so cheap that if you disagree with someone, or don't like them, that you have them murdered, or suggest or offer to do this as a sort of favour? Scary.

Postcards from the world's most dangerous city

I heard some disturbing accounts of ultra-violent attacks on family and friends in Johannesburg. The most horrific involved some men who heated up a clothes iron and proceeded to burn triangular patches of the black domestic workers breasts and inner thighs aswell as a white grandmother. They did this evidently to terrorise a young white boy. He was so distressed he begged them to take the money out of his piggy bank.

Once again the sheer violence of crime in this city is shocking. One imagines the criminals think they have free reign since the worst that can happen to them is time in jail (a roof over their heads and three square meals).

I also received a phone call recently - May 1 in fact - from the wife of the Zimbabwean gardener who we believe informed three others of how to access a property and where to find valuables. They then robbed the landlady in Orchards, beat her up in the face and stole her jewellery. She - the domestic worker - wanted to know where I was staying, since she was looking for a job. I asked her if she had had any problems with the landlady and at first she diplomatically though cautiously said that she had had no problems. When I volunteered how unpleasant my experience over the last 2 months with her had been she said, "That woman in horrible.:

The place where I have moved to had a recent break-in - a car. I think this was in the last week of April. Fortunately the street has since been fortified with a strong gate.

Just how dangerous is South Africa?

Honestly? Johannesburg is Milton Keynes with thunderstorms. You go out. You eat some 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?

Jeremy Clarkson may scoff at South Africans, and invite his mates here in droves, but a few weeks in the country may not quite be enough to understand what it is like to live here, to grow up here, to raise children and go to work.

Granted, it is easy to believe that things here are actually quite good. It helps, obviously, if you avoid certain areas, and certain headlines. But let's step away from the jaded cliches, and look at an out-take. Out my life.
So let's see:

Earlier today I received a call from a private investigator who specialises in fraud cases. He told me that someone had opened an account in my name with Cellular Service provider Cell C using my identity number and banking details. See, earlier this week I noticed R1300 had been debited off my account. The P.I. says it is in all likelihood a syndicate...in other words...they do this for a living. No big deal.
So anyway, that was my experience of being defrauded by Johannesburg's tranquil citizen's TODAY.

Last week I was at a police station in Rosebank to report my Oakley Juliet Fire glasses missing. True, I may have left them on my desk at work and they may have accidentally tumbled into the trash can as a result of a minor earthquake (mining activity in the vicinity, blasting for the Gautrain, an exec upstairs jumping up and down because the power had gone as he was about to save his PowerPoint presentation to the board) and then were carried away innocently and inadvertently by the cleaning lady.

Cellphones and sunglasses? Is that the best I can do? Well, my landlady was beaten to a pulp and locked in her safe by three armed thugs - that was...let's see...about 6 months ago. The thugs gained access thanks to the gardener providing them with the keys and a treasure map to her jewellery. Oh sorry, is 6 months too long a gap. Two weeks ago today - er...I'm not making this up...I got up before 5am to go cycling with a friend of mine. He lives 1km from me. No answer on his cellphone. Lights on in his home, but perhaps his family were celebrating his birthday. I later called his wife because I found it odd that the lights were on and he hadn't answered his phone... Turns out his wife had woken up in the middle of the night and found a burglar in their bedroom. No harm done, he jumped through the bathroom window but he was close enough to my buddy to steal the cellphone from his bedside table. That's brazen.

How about a broad sweep. Have I had my car stolen? Yes. Twice. Recovered twice too. My sister has had her car stolen, so has my girlfriend's mother, and my father has had his green pickup stolen. Have I ever had my car broken into? About 4 times. Car radio stolen, sometimes they break into without checking whether there is one. Two year's ago my girlfriend had her car broken into. Her brother was mugged recently; his wallet and phone stolen.

My father and my sister were attacked on the Wild Coast and robbed and stripped at knife point. We're really grateful that she wasn't raped.

Over the years I've had a lot of clothing disappear - caps,t-shirts, that sort of thing. When I lived in Cape Town I arrived home to find almost all my clothes - most of them bought overseas - gone. If I hadn't taken my laptop to work, that would almost certainly have been stolen too.

You can go through the list above and you can see how often crime rubs shoulder's with the average South African. Ordinary theft, assault, burglary. Now I'm not a careless person; I don't go wandering out at night at every conceivable opportunity. Just think about it. Someone who lives effectively in the same house as I do got attacked by three men and beaten to a pulp. I was here when that happened. Up the road, a kilometre away, my closest friends found a stranger walking around in their bedroom. My father and sister have been physically attacked.

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?

Fact is Jeremy, most South Africans ignore the threat they face every day. They beat back their insecurities and their fears with a stick.
South African bloggers don’t whine about crime
The government ignores it too, and tries to massage the statistics. The police are a mixture of corrupt cops and those who do an incredible job against all odds. Actually, in a country where crime is rife your chances of getting away with it are so much better. That, and no death penalty mean there's not much stopping you from going on a free-for-all.
Gang on horror rampage of shooting and rape

Most South Africans ignore the threat they face every day from criminals until they are the violent victims of it. Crime in South Africa is not only common, but it's the most violent in the world. That's not really something to joke about.
Fourteen years after apartheid, why are the best and the brightest leaving Africa's most successful state?

So, does Clarkson have a point or not? He does. You can probably come to South Africa for the World Cup and enjoy a great experience. If you have a chaperon or a friend to show you around so much the better. If you get lost - and here's a grim truth - it is very easy to get lost in Johannesburg where road signs are not clear or absent entirely, there are potholes and dark spots...you run a risk of getting into trouble. Also, the longer you stay here the better your chances of something untoward happening. I'm 37 years old and I've never been attacked. Not once. I know people who have. Dress appropriately, and be sensible and you'll be fine. Probably. One thing I will say for Clarkson - a sense of humor in this country is important. But also a sense of urgency. Most South Africans lack the latter, hence we have a number of converging crisis from AIDS, to crime, to poverty, to leadership.
Maybe if a number of visitors come to our shores we'll jack ourselves up a bit.

That had been my hope when I heard South Africa had been awarded the 2010 world cup. But has the crime problem even been addressed? Doubtful, beyond providing perfunctory security to stadiums.

Here's what's bizarre. Even those South Africans who do leave soon feel homesick. Those who stay feel vulnerable.

Lynette Chen, the ethnic-Chinese CEO of Nepad Business Group, is the only member of her family left in South Africa. Her parents departed in 2002 after being carjacked—twice. Her brother, also a victim of crime, followed suit shortly thereafter. "They're always getting homesick," she says. "But they won't come back unless the crime is reduced."

As for me, I'd leave if I could. I love the food, the weather, the environment. The problem is the people - the criminal element I mean. There are thousands more just like me, trapped in a country, filled with mixed feelings of enjoyment and dread.

It's (not so) cool in the pool (Column)

The flu I have been beating off with a stick since last Friday resurged yesterday, so when I arrived home instead of leaving the car outside the garage, I pulled it in. I was kipping comfortably in the early evening and then woke up at about 7pm to watch the news and make supper (a mealie plus some fish fingers and ice cream for dessert).
By 9:30pm I was watching Magnum PI on DVD with most of the lights off. My father called at around 10pm to say he had arrived back from Botswana and Namibia. After a dash of Oprah and a few pages of Eckhard Tolle's A New Earth I tried to sleep.

At around midnight I heard a knocking downstairs at the door. I thought: there is no way I am opening the door for whoever that is (there is a lady who is always begging for lifts, favours or money across the road). Then I heard a man's voice and so opened the window.
"Sorry to bother, but one of the guards saw some guys running out of the house. One guy was carrying a bag. Can I come through and look around?" It was one of the guys from CAP.

I let him through and after several minutes he comes back and says everything seems fine. No sign of breaking and entering.
"Did you speak to the lady?" I ask. I've meanwhile gone to the garage to check our cars. Both there, no broken windows.
"No." And off he goes, shining his torch at the windows. I go upstairs to call her on her cell, meanwhile the landline is ringing with no answer (CAP are calling).

No answer on her cell. It's not even ringing.
I'm not feeling so lekker now, and I'm not referring to the flu. I go downstairs, looking through the kitchen with the CAP guy (lights are on inside). Pull on the door - locked. Go around to her bedroom and she's not there. She could be upstairs, but it's unlikely. The blankets on the bed are pushed up quite high. I go around to the side and see her handbag lying on the floor almost behind the bed.
That's not like her. There's also lots of stuff on the bed - from this angle - that shouldn't be there. I pull on the door and it - unexpectedly - opens. As soon as I am inside I see something is wrong. Pieces of cheese - one with a bite taken out of it - lie on the ground at the door's entrance.

I call her name and immediately hear a faint response. When I reach the door of her bedroom to the passage the downstairs is covered in detritus. I mean each step is covered in clothes and empty boxes. I follow her voice to a steel door with a small key in it. It takes a while to figure out how to open the safe, and when I do, she is inside, her face red and swollen having been bludgeoned a few times. I feel like I want to hug her, She says, "Thanks for rescuing me."
"How long have you been in there?" I ask.
"About two hours. They said they would kill me if I made a noise."
I can't believe how brazen these guys are. Two hours ago I was still awake, talking to my father on the phone.
As she steps out of the safe she says, "They've taken everything."

The guy from CAP is calling all this in, and she asks me to call her daughter (since her phone is gone). The CAP guy asks her if he should order a locksmith (entry was through using a key).
It's not long before we ascertain how this happened. The gardener who left 2 weeks earlier simply gave his key with instructions to three other thugs. Upstairs we find an empty box with the second garage's remote missing. She confirms: "It was him. Only Nkosi knew about this, and knew where it was."

I went back to bed soon after. By 12:55 the next day the police have still not arrived to take fingerprints (almost 13 hours later). I don't know whether the CAP guys co-ordinate their search, but the perpetrators seemed to have been on foot, which means (I realise this morning) I could probably have found them by bicycling around the neighborhood. Sometimes those closest to us, whom we allow into our homes, are our worst enemies. Someone said: "Love all, trust few and do evil to none." Words to live by.

Chancer

True story: I went to a DVD store in Norwood and after handing over my credit card for a 20 DVD Rental package, I backed away from the counter to check a section of nearby shelves. Funny thing: the lady in the snakeskin leather jacket was suddenly standing right beside me, keenly observing my interest in the selection. Very friendly.

I went back to the counter, picked up my two DVD's and absently fished in my pockets for my credit card. Not there. Not on the counter either. I checked my pockets again.
"Strange. Where's my credit card?" She gave me a puzzled look. I started to lean over the counter... "Oh, here it is." She slipped her hand against the very back end of the counter and gave it to me.

It occurred to me when I drove away that it was the first time she had ever joined me on the other side of the counter, apparently 'assisting'. What she had obviously done is quickly removed the card from the counter when I turned my back, and then moved quickly away so that I wouldn't suspect that this had happened when I wasn't looking - how could she if she had been standing beside me all this time. Disappointing behaviour.

Organised Crime in Johannesburg

On the 1st of December, at around 3pm we headed towards Ellis Park for the 46664 concert. Within a very short space of time the following happened:

- we were herded by a flock of youths wearing orange 'Crime Stop' jackets
- within a few hundred metres of a traffic light three black men approached my car (I was idling beside the sidewalk, waiting for a friend to catch up). The hair's on the back of my neck went up. They really appeared poised to strike, as they had stepped off the sidewalk, and were about a foot away from the passenger window. Unluckily for them there were no cars in front of me and none behind. After a few seconds they crossed the road.
- Not 200 metres further a car overtook another car around a blind corner. I hit the brakes, coming to a sudden, dead stop, so suddenly that the engine died - and the passing car just missed me.
- having found a parking place, a black man approached me and sternly said: "I told you to park there. You must park there now."

He was wearing an orange 'Crime Stop' plastic jacket. His attitude was aggressive and gruff. I told him I could park where I liked. He then handed me a ticket instructing me to pay him R50, and in capitalletters: Pay NOW!
I asked my buddy if he had paid and he replied with a snigger: "Are you kidding? Give this guy R50 so he can walk away and soon as we're gone and have a few beers."

On the way to Ellis Park I saw rats running along the pavement, the smell of human excrement and ganja, and in a drain in a road (the metal plate had been removed) someone had disposed of a computer. I was worried about walking back along this route at midnight after the concert, and I was concerned that my car would be waiting for me minus radio, wheels and engine.

When I did return - mercifully a blonde lady gave us a lift back - the car was in one piece, and our guard had, suprise surprise, disappeared. In his place was a pushy fellow who harassed us all the way to the car. He got R2 and change for his trouble.

Why do I say organised crime? Because the strategy to bully someone to pay you R50 essentially for nothing, and having photocopied tokens, is obviously organised, as well as having a team of guys direct traffic. Also the 'Crime Stop' jackets had to be procured from somewhere. Quite ironic: 'Crime Stop'. Ja, where the crime stops the extortion starts.

The attempt to get to Ellis Park that Saturday is by far the scariest experience I've had since moving to Johannesburg in late July.

To put into perspective how nuts the situation is: imagine a lot of traffic is moving along a highway near your home. The people in these cars are of a different race to you for the most part; perhaps Asians or hispanics. You go out of your house, angrily shout at them telling them where to park in your own street, and demand immediate payment. It's crazy.