When you look at our city streets, do you see only tarred roadways, dotted with potholes, or stages on which the dramas and delights of our city are played out?
Our streets are the pathways upon which we travel to places; they are seldom destinations in themselves.
The experiences of recent weeks have made me reconsider my relationship with our roads.
While looking at a map of Joburg, I was reminded of the arteries and veins that transport blood, oxygen, nutrients and waste products around the body.
Certainly, our roads perform a similar function in our city, but our streets are so much more than a transport network.
Many residents have begun to ‘reclaim’ their streets.
We’ve partied in them, danced in them, kissed in them. We’ve seen block parties and informal gatherings; we’ve seen friends and strangers passing the time of day on them.
We’ve had processions and marches, carnivals and festivals on them.
Religious doctrines and political manifestos have been preached and proclaimed on them.
Our streets have also seen their fair share of violence and bloodshed, protest and riot.
Women have given birth on our streets, and people have lost their lives on them, too.
My visit to the exhibition The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, currently at Newtown’s Museum Africa, opened my eyes further to the reality of Joburg’s streets as a stage.
I was struck by many of the black and white photographs taken on roads I use on a daily basis; one of those images being Gille de Vlieg’s photograph of Black Sash founder member Jean Sinclair protesting on Jan Smuts Avenue in 1985.
We’ve not paved our streets with gold – we have paved them with tar, but that wasn’t good enough for us. So over the tar went our blood, sweat and tears.
Are we truly ‘reclaiming’ our streets? I don’t know so much – I don’t think we ever lost them.
