A city of migrants
By Griffin Shea
I woke up with relief today, that the ominous 30 June warnings did not lead to the worst of our fears. Bridge Books closed Tuesday out of caution, as the march was slated to pass right in front of the store. There’s a lot of protests in our neighbourhood, a consequence of so many government and political party offices nearby. But this one felt different. One year when Bridge had a shop in Maboneng, an unplanned protest spiralled through the area, and the staff were trapped inside the store for hours. No one was hurt and nothing damaged, but I can’t have anyone take chances like that.
Between the anti-immigrant protests, ostensibly from the grassroots, and the “clean-ups” in town, blatantly from the top of city government, it’s been a tricky few months in the city. Stats SA said that after the traders were removed around Park Station, Johannesburg lost 293,000 jobs – nearly wiping out employment gains in the rest of the country. Since then, the additional evictions around Marble Tower can only have deepened the job losses, with everything that means for people’s ability to feed themselves and their families, in a country that needs every job it can create.
About two-thirds of the 71 booksellers in the LitDistrict are migrants, including me. Before I got permanent residency, I was illegal at different points during my 18 years here, due to incorrectly issued visas and delays in issuing visas. That was when I had a major international company with lawyers and consultants supporting me at Home Affairs. I can only imagine how people without those resources can navigate the bureaucracy.
The line between South African and foreigner is not as neat as the protesters would have us think. One bookseller was born in South Africa, went as a small child into exile, and returned in 1994 when his mother died in KZN. That’s been over three decades. He still has not been issued an ID card or any other documents. Another came over two decades ago, married a South African, and has South African children. His papers have not been issued. Another came as a refugee with asylum papers that are issued seemingly at whim, for unpredictable reasons. For all of them, this means they’re effectively excluded from banking, which means they have no credit, can’t expand their businesses beyond their cash flow, and have no access to the systems of the formal economy – like being able to order new books from mainstream suppliers. Most of them employ other people. One runs a charity to bring magazines and books to kids in Diepsloot.
They all try to follow the rules, which is impossible to do. The new city policy for street traders approved in 2022 has yet to be implemented. People evicted from purpose-built market stalls were told in October to apply for new permits. They queued up, filled out the forms, and have yet to receive any communication about when a permit might be issued.
Last month, our Bloomsday event celebrated not only James Joyce and Ulysses, but the way people, words and culture move around. Our gifted readers, mostly volunteers, did excerpts from Ulysses in five languages: English, German, Dutch, French, and isiZulu.
Joyce wrote in English, but he spent most of his adult life in Trieste, Zurich, and Paris — immersed in Italian, German, and French, teaching languages for a living. Ulysses is full of snatches of different languages, voices crowding in on each other. The book doesn't just describe a city. It performs one. And cities, as anyone reading this knows, are never spoken in a single voice.
Joyce left Dublin in his twenties and spent the rest of his life in self-imposed exile and then wrote obsessively about the city he had left, famously saying that when he died, Dublin would be written in his heart. He never stopped being from somewhere, even when he was somewhere else entirely.
This city is full of people like that. People who carry another place in their chest — who came here from Harare, from Kinshasa, from Lagos, from Karachi, from Louisiana — and who have made Johannesburg their home without ever forgetting where they began. We need to remember that this is not a handicap. That is what makes this one of the most alive cities on earth. And it is why a book written by a migrant, set in a single city, spoken in many languages, feels at home here, in a city full of migrants who make our community great.
Book Recommendations
These are books that deal with migration, with the movement of people to and from their homes. Some are within the borders of a country and some are across them. Some are stories of exile, some are refugee journeys, they are all deeply human.
Oliver Tambo: A Jacana pocket biography
Buy here
Sanctuary: How an Inner-city church spilled onto a sidewalk by Christa Kuljian
Buy here
Guilty and Proud: An MK Soldier's Memoir of Exile, Prison and Freedom, by Marion Sparg
Buy here
Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home by Sisonke Msimang
Buy here
Crossing the River by Fred Khumalo
Buy here
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Buy here
The Gold Diggers by Sue Nyathi
Buy here
Going Home by Simao Kikamba
Buy here
Under Nelson Mandela Boulevard: Life among the stowaways by Sean Christie
Buy here
Zama Zama: Inside the Illicit Mining Underworld by Graham Coetzer
Buy here