I gave my editor a stern and solemn promise that, in return for being allowed back into the pages of the Mail & Guardian, I would tell no more stories about things that happen to me at African airports, or on African airlines. This is in spite of the fact that I spend most of my time in those places and on those things and as a result have more to say about what happens in those situations than about, say, life on Earth, President Thabo Mbeki or the “African renaissance”.
But one’s editor knows best. So I promise to say
nothing more about airlines, aeroplanes and airports, not even good ones – although it has to be said that our own local contender on the outskirts of Johannesburg is beginning to look rather impressive nowadays, finally nearing world-class standards.
It strikes me that an airport (just briefly, while I am on the subject) is something of an index of the state of the nation that lies beyond its doors. By these standards, the blossoming of the former Jan Smuts Aerodrome into a glamorous, chrome and plastic international shopping mall says a lot about where South Africa is at these days.
While we may still be banging on about the various crises burdening the majority of our population, the maturing of Johannesburg’s airport is ample demonstration that international business is hungrily beating a path to our door.
“Crisis? What crisis?” says the smiling little piggy as it welcomes Mr Wolf into our pleasant abode.
“You mean you’ll let me come in?” says Mr Wolf. “No more strikes? No more boycotts? No more toyi-toyi?”
“Those days are gone!” replies the pig. “We want you to come in. It would be a pleasure to do business with you, sir.”
And so Mr Wolf, surprised at how things have changed in the past 10 years, walks bemused into a country that, on the surface, is almost unrecognisable. The smart taxi with its well-trained, well-spoken driver wafts him straight to Sandton, where the illusion is maintained for as long as it takes the wolf to do what he has to do and then return to the swanky airport for the trip back home.
“Now this,” says the wolf, reclining in his seat as the aircraft taxies towards the runway, “is the way I like my Africa to be.”
It’s all smoke and mirrors, of course. A First World airport in a Third World country is money in the bank.
Other African airports have tried to catch on, but have not succeeded to the extent of Johannesburg International. They can’t afford it, or their rulers and their leaders of industry (unlike ours) just don’t have the gumption, the sheer nerve to make it work or at least give it a try.
At Dakar International, for example, there is a near-riot as passengers try to check in for flights that have been cancelled without notice. Facilities in the departure hall, if you make it there, are Spartan, to say the least.
At Bamako infuriated passengers sit trapped in the heat, with nowhere to go and no information about why their flight has not come in from Dakar.
At Abidjan the airport has been undergoing radical reconstruction for more than a year and is now on the brink of completion. But it is chaos, with traffic backed up in both directions, from west and east, because of the strike by Air Afrique. None of the uniformed airline officials is prepared to take responsibility for anything.
At Lagos the expanded airport is also nearing completion. It almost has a shopping mall, but the escalators don’t work and the customs area is a tangle of meandering electrical cables and raw concrete. A sign on the wall says: “In case of fire alarm, do not panic. Follow this direction ‘.” The arrow is pointing nowhere. On another wall, there is a sticker that says: “He who laughs in Christ laughs best.” Baffled, and wondering what there is to laugh about anyway, I await another plane.
And so finally to Johannesburg, with its smooth halls that make you feel like you’re not in Africa at all. The miracle of the Dark Continent.
So I can appreciate the feelings of Mr Wolf, international businessman, as he contemplates the marvel that is South Africa, as represented by its premier airport.
And yet, through the window of the plane that is about to take me north again, a sense of dejà vu as I watch a dumb show unfolding on the tarmac – one that probably would not have caught Mr Wolf’s attention.
It is early morning. A blonde catering lady gets out of her BMW and canters over to supervise the loading of our catering trolley. She tries to look poised, international and stylish from the top of her high Gucci heels, but then promptly falls over as she crouches down to see if the semi-reconstructed tsotsi who is assisting her has been doing his job properly. She sprawls on her back, cellphone clutched in her hand like a lifeline to God.
The semi-reconstructed tsotsi stands there with his hands in his pockets, watching her stumbling unglamorously back on to her heels. He has not been trained to offer her a helping hand and she has not been trained to ask for assistance from the likes of him under such circumstances.
So they go on in this fashion, working together in close proximity, a closeness sometimes bordering on intimacy and indecency, while at the same time inhabiting infinitely distant universes.
So a new and efficient airport: yes. But a new and efficient society behind the facade? Not quite.
Such is the Rainbow Nation, when closely observed from the window of an African aircraft, waiting to take off from an African airport.
But from now on, no more about airports.
Archive: Previous columns by John Matshikiza