Im Vorlauf des World Cups 2010 in Südafrika schreibt die in London lebende Soziologin Dr. Natascha Müller-Hirth für Munitionen über Johannesburg, Hoffnungen und Versprechungen, die WM des Protests, den südafrikanischen Staatspräsidenten Jacob Zuma und weitere Ein- und Ausblicke im Land des WM-Gastgebers. Natascha Müller-Hirth hat in Südafrika gelebt und gearbeitet und vor allem Johannesburg hat einen speziellen Platz in ihrem Herzen eingenommen. Nicht wegen der Schönheit der Stadt (denn sie ist es nicht), sondern ihrer atemberaubenden Schnellebigkeit. In ihrer akademischen Arbeit beschäftigt sie sich mit südafrikanischer Politik nach dem demokratischen Übergang. Normalerweise meidet sie Fußball, doch bei dieser WM unterstützt sie - natürlich - die “Bafana Bafana”. Und bringt uns in vier Artikeln ihr Südafrika näher.

No doubt that many of the fans staying in Johannesburg during the World Cup are going to visit Constitution Hill. It is one of only a few tourist sights in a city that is notable for what we might call an architecture of fear: high walls, electric fences, barbed wire, private armed security. South Africa is one of the world’s most violent societies, with Jo’burg considered one of the most dangerous cities. Constitution Hill is one of only a few landmarks in a city that famously has no river, no sea front, no mountain by which to help you navigate. And it’s beautiful up there. From the hill, there is an amazing view over the city; over the shiny skyscrapers of the Central Business District and the Hillbrow skyline and the leafy green suburbs (no landmarks but six million trees!), all the way to the mine dumps in the distance, scarring the landscape and providing a constant reminder of what the city was built on. And in June, the sky will be a crisp deep blue, no clouds in the winter sky, the Gauteng light bright and sharp.

Past, Present, Future
You could say that Con Hill signifies South Africa’s past, present and future. Today it is home to the highest court of the country, which guards what is arguably the most progressive constitution in the world. But it is built on the foundations of the Old Fort, a high security prison erected by the Boers in the 19th century. During Apartheid the prison tracts were used to detain political activists and criminals but also many ordinary people, under notoriously inhumane conditions. Nelson Mandela and his fellow Rivonia Trial defendants were held here when they were accused of treason in 1963/ 1964. The court building itself is beautiful: there are lots of windows, sculptures and open spaces. It showcases the work of South African artists and it uses a traditional African system for cooling. Its huge doors are decorated with wood carvings depicting constitutionally guaranteed human rights in all the eleven South African languages; the stairs are covered with tiny bronze ornaments, each individually designed.

It is very much indicative of the new South Africa to build this symbol of democracy and equality on a site that stands for some of the country’s most notorious history and its gravest violations of human rights. Old sites, memories and identities stand side by side with new, Post-Apartheid ones, apparently without an attempt to revise or erase history. On the contrary – Con Hill shows how architecture and public history are purposely being refashioned to forge a new democratic identity.

Contradictions and challenges
But from the height of Constitution Hill the inequalities that persist 16 years after the first democratic elections, 20 years after Mandela’s walk to freedom, are also clearly visible. The crowded inner city neighbourhoods; the tower of Sandton City that dominates the ‘new’ business district when capital fled the central business district; wealthy suburbs like Parktown and Westcliff, gated communities of faux-Tuscan houses guarded by electric fencing and privatised security. And then there is the evocative skyline of Hillbrow, towering over crumbling facades that tell a familiar story about immigration, destitution and crime, about the journey from segregation to brief cosmopolitan heyday to current decay. And yet, Gauteng, the smallest of the country’s provinces which includes the vast metropolitan areas of Johannesburg and Pretoria, produces 10% of the GDP of the entire African continent.

Tourists are unlikely to visit Jo’burg’s poorer neighbourhoods, not least because the legacy of Apartheid is ever present in Jo’burg’s geography and residential segregation inscribed into the psyche of the city. Urban development after Apartheid seems only to have increased the city’s spatial, racial and class contradictions – Patrick Bond calls it the ‘quintessential neoliberal dystopia’. The restructuring and liberalisation of the South African economy that went hand in hand with the political transition to democracy have caused living conditions to be worse than under Apartheid for millions of black people – a fact that is almost impossible to grasp. South Africa has the highest Gini Coefficient, the indicator that measures inequality, and performs very poorly in terms of human development Index (125 out of 179 countries on the Human Development Index, compared to its ranking in 76th place based on income). In 2008, 40% of the population were unemployed, with millions literally unemployable due to the skills gap. The HIV pandemic and the belated response of the democratic Government have reduced life expectancy at birth to 50 years. That means that if mortality patterns remain unchanged, a child born in Africa’s richest country has the same chance of surviving to the age of 40 as a child born today in Guinea-Bissau.

So the challenges the new South Africa faces are huge. The World Cup has been billed as providing massive opportunities for the country – in terms of job creation, infrastructure development, tourism and also in terms of uniting the country and the whole continent. I will try to unpack some of these claims here over the new few days.