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1 " But Sara has spent enough time in the darkness to know that you often have to remain there for a long time before you’re ready for the light again. "
― Harry Kalmer , A Thousand Tales of Johannesburg
2 " He thought how easy it would be to write an entire book on Johannesburg violence. The strike leader Pickaxe Mary, after whom Mary Fitzgerald Square was named, who attacked her enemies with a pickaxe handle. The trenches dug into the streets of Fordsburg during the 1922 miners’ strike. The cannons of the government aimed at the poor whites of Vrededorp. The murdered woman in the 1960s whose head was found in the Zoo Lake and whose torso was discovered in a suitcase in Wemmer Pan. Jan Smuts, who wanted to bomb striking workers with aeroplanes. The countless schoolchildren shot during the 1976 uprising. The fifty-three supporters who were shot down in the street outside Shell House, the ANC headquarters. The huge bomb that went off shortly before the first democratic election and made a whole row of shops kneel down on the pavements of Bree Street. The commuters, in the early 1990s, killed by pangas or who jumped to their deaths from moving trains to escape their Portuguese-speaking attackers. The murderess Daisy de Melker, whose third husband survived only because she was caught in time. The violent home invasions, rapes and hijackings he read about in the newspapers every day. "
3 " Revolution?” Arno laughed. “What happened wasn’t a revolution. It was a deal. The creation of a new bunch of entrepreneurs who could be more easily manipulated by international capital. "
4 " This is Africa, my friends … These folks do things differently.” Sven Taxel, who regards himself as an expert on South Africa because he has read Wilbur Smith, Rian Malan and André Brink, tries to calm his fellow congregation members. "
5 " So I am not exactly sure what I imagine and what I remember. Is there a difference? Not much, if you ask me. "
6 " Why are you always filming people?”“I’m busy documenting a thousand stories about Johannesburg.”“Oral histories?”“No, stories. People don’t always speak the truth. "
