I am always left bewildered by the ‘discoveries” people are making about Soweto. Just the other day the Weekender had a headline: ‘People are living there” in reference to a tourism story they were doing. Duh! And just last Sunday a one-time favourite columnist pointed out that people were planting trees in Soweto.
The brouhaha about the opening of Maponya Mall in Klipspruit is therefore in that light. I am tempted to describe it, but the fact that it is in Soweto does not make it any different to what malls look like elsewhere. It is not even the first mall to open in Soweto. This one just happens to have a far greater number of darkies walking its floors than other malls. If you know of a mall in your neighbourhood, assume that Maponya is more or less the same. It did cost R650-million to build after all.
For some people Sowetans are a collective Sarah Baartman. The simple notion of shopping at a mall is a matter of unending anthropological and sociological study. ‘Look, they are going to the mall! Oh, one has a Platinum Credit card. Where’s the damn camera? I need to take pictures,” I imagine an anthropologist saying to himself.
Newsflash: Sowetans have for years shopped for their wares. As with other urban citizens of the world, they get most of their fruit and vegetables from dealers and not from their own gardens. Sure you will, from time to time, find an instant butchery, especially near hostels, but most people there get their meat at the same places as residents of Hyde Park or Constantia — a butchery.
Yes, the Maponya Mall has a Fabiani — the clothing store that famously had a life-size picture of Tony Yengeni, that most stylish of political criminals, displaying its wares. It also has a Kurt Geiger boutique. But the locals who can afford these items have been purchasing them from wherever they were previously to be found. Sometimes they went kwa Mnguni, right in front of the hustle bustle of taxis and buses at the Bara taxi rank.
And what about the local entrepreneur who will be squashed out because they cannot compete with the big players? Tough!
It is not like they have always priced their items for the benefit of ‘their people”.
If we came to terms with the wonder that is Soweto, and the fact that it has a mall, we would also help some Sowetans to get over their mistaken belief that they are the prototypical black South Africans and they are first in the queue of street cred.
But, I suspect I am being optimistic and that the marketers and the tourist guides would prefer to have me gagged for such views. I don’t care.
Just wait and see the reaction when the first multinational announces it is opening its head office in Soweto. Between now and then please do accept that Soweto and Sowetans are just like you and you (sic). They should be able have a new mall without it being a topic of debate on national radio.