By Clare Byrne Nov 5, 2009, 12:30 GMT
Johannesburg - The Goethe-Institut is fighting the battle of Johannesburg - but will the walls come tumbling down?
To mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German cultural institute is leading the charge on the barriers that the people of Johannesburg have erected around their homes - and hearts - in response to the country's towering crime rates.
On Monday, the Institut will rip out a section of the high brick wall that surrounds its own building in the city's leafy northern suburbs.
By exposing itself thus, the Goethe hopes to draw more people into the centre, which promotes both German and African culture through a year-round programme of events and classes.
The Germans are also hoping that their actions will inspire South Africans to rethink the walls that segregate the country along social lines 15 years after the official end of racial segregation.
One of the first things that strikes people on coming to Johannesburg is how, not just homes, but shops, museums, cafes and other places that thrive on social interaction are often sealed off from view behind high walls.
While most blame the country's high levels of violent crime - some of the highest in the world - researchers say South Africans began barricading their homes long before crime spiralled out of control in the early 1990s.
'Fear of crime is often used to justify spatially separate urban forms in ways that disguise other motivations,' Professor Jo Beall, a researcher at the London School of Economics wrote in a 2002 study on Johannesburg, entitled 'The People Behind the Walls.'
Fear of crime, Beall noted, was sometimes code for fear of difference in a population, where blacks and whites were forcibly kept apart for decades, leaving a legacy of deep mistrust.
'We still have walls in our heads,' admits Denis Goldberg, a veteran of the anti-apartheid movement who spent 24 years in prison for resisting racist rule.
Today, walls warning of an 'armed response' to crime run the entire length of suburban streets and gated communities are ubiquitous.
Ironically, while sucking the life out of the street, the walls, which now serve as a marker of class, rather than race, have singularly failed to knock property crime over the head, statistics show.
Over the past five years, while the number of burglaries has decreased, the number of armed robberies at homes has nearly doubled, to 18,438 reported cases in 2008/2009.
'Walls do not necessarily make us safer. And in some cases I think walls make us a lot less safe,' according to Barbara Holtmann, head of the Social Crime Prevention unit at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
Whereas in the past burglars would wait until the occupants were out of the house to pounce, the walls meant robbers often needed the victim to be there to provide access - at gun- or knife-point.
Once inside, the threat of violence being used against the victim was also greater, says Holtmann, because 'nobody can see what they (criminals) are doing and they can do whatever they like.'
'If I bought a house with a wall, I'd tear it down,' declares Stuart McClarty.
McClarty, a father of three and owner of a catering business, lives in a stand-alone house in the northern suburbs, about 10 minutes drive from the Goethe-Institut.
His neighbours on either side of him have erected walls, but the beefy McClarty has opted instead for a high palisade fence, in the belief that being attuned to his surroundings make him safer.
In their five years on the street the family have had no break-ins - an exceptional record for the area.
'We need to start encouraging people to engage in a bit of a mindshift about what makes them safe and what kind of boundary they need between themselves and the world,' Holtmann says.
A simple 'hello' might be just the ticket, according to one campaign.
The founders of Stop Crime Say Hello website believe that by showing others more respect 'we will see dramatic decreases in violence in our country.'
'For some this may mean doing things as simple as smiling at a car guard and saying hello.'
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