To the departed Joburg council members: Hambani kahle

They may be correct. I haven’t been keeping a tally but at recent memorial for a councillor who succumbed to Covid, the speaker said his was the 17th life lost this term.

Certainly, we have lost two mayors in two months. Geoff Makhubo died of Covid complications on 9 July. His successor Jolidee Matongo was killed in a motor accident on 18 September.

In the build-up to elections there can be nasty exchanges between political opponents. As we head towards the 1 November municipal polls, mud will be thrown.

Yet, in Johannesburg right now, there is also a sense of collegiality, deriving from the turbulent journey we have shared since being sworn-in on 22 August 2016. Conventional wisdom directs us not to speak ill of the dead.

Even if there were not such a convention, my recollections of Makhubo and Matongo would remain positive.

After we had previously been brushed aside by the mayoral office, Makhubo made a welcome difference.

Apart from always being polite, friendly and even unnecessarily respectful, he would respond to e-mails and other communications.

You might say he was merely doing his job. But the difference was noticeable. Earlier this year, Makhubo made a point of mentioning my ward during an address to council.

He took seriously the concerns raised by residents about displaced people in Delta Park, for example. And he directed relevant members of his mayoral committee (MMCs) to investigate and report back.

In May, I shared a public platform with Makhubo when the sponsored Pothole Patrol was launched on a stretch of William Nicol Drive in my ward. Again here was a mayor who took seriously the concerns of residents and councillors.

That means a lot in this job, for which I am again standing as ward candidate.

Encounters with Matongo as mayor were necessarily limited. After all, he held that office for a mere 36 days. Yet he was always likeable and energetic. A “Jolly Good Fellow” indeed.

Earlier this year, as an MMC, Matongo was in charge of an online public meeting to discuss the integrated development plan for our region. He impressed residents with his eagerness to listen to their concerns and to take them seriously.

These qualities would have served him well as mayor. Of course, the track record of the party which these mayors represented is not good. Ideologically, councillors from the different parties are far apart. (Mayors are fellow councillors.)

But there are also ways in which we are not that different. Those who focus on differences may quote Rudyard Kipling: Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.

Yet Kipling knew better. In the same poem, the Ballad of East and West, he described a realm where … there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth.

In the bigger picture, we share a common humanity which reduces the relevance of our differences. Death the leveller has been hard at work in the Joburg Council.

When we offer condolences to families and friends, it is with sincerity based on shared experiences.

Hambani kahle.