A Tribute to Snazzy Max and Ruminations on Lawlessness and Crime in South Africa

Aweh dearly beloved fellow ruminants & groupies in day 715 of re-modified lockdown Level 1 and stage 4 load shedding.

Period as a semi-retired pensioner: 343 days

My name is Bruce, and I am a coffeeholic. Both our boys were privileged to go to the Ridge School in Johannesburg for their primary school education. The school provided a good foundation for our two very different boys. There were many cultural and sporting events on the weekends, and we were regulars at the school. It was there, more than a decade ago, that I first met Max with his gourmet coffee and snacks trailer which was later rebranded to the Snazzy Max Café.

Every morning when I dropped Connor he would tug on my sleeve, and we would get out and I would get a coffee and Connor would get a chocolate chip cookie which he would carefully pack into his lunchbox to eat later. Max knew our routine and would prepare our order without us having to ask. There was a greeting and a kind word every day.

When our boys were at the school, I volunteered to teach chess to the boys which started my chess journey covered in an earlier blog. https://ruminantpinkfriday.com/2021/05/07/ruminations-of-an-ageing-chess-bore/. Although our boys left the Ridge long ago, I am privileged to still teach chess at the Ridge every Tuesday morning at 07h00 together with the proper Fide registered chess coach Fwati Kunda who is still teaching Oliver and me. After the lesson, Kunda and I would always visit Max’s trailer for coffee where he prepared our regular order without asking. Max was always there and there was order in the universe.

Last Tuesday, (1 March), was the last time I saw him. Later that week he was shot and killed in Hillbrow. Initial stories circulated that he was robbed and shot at an ATM. This Tuesday I spoke to his business partner. This is apparently not what happened. He was with a group of people when a gunman opened fire on them and four people were shot. One died instantly and Max died later in hospital. It does not appear that robbery was the motive. What does one make of this? Was the shooter deranged? Or, more likely, was this a xenophobic attack? You see Max was Zimbabwean and Hillbrow is a melting pot of different African cultures. A kindly 60-year-old man running his small business to support his family was most likely assassinated in an act of unimaginable cruelty and barbarity. It is not easy to be an immigrant in Johannesburg and xenophobic violence is always bubbling beneath the surface. https://www.groundup.org.za/article/heavy-police-presence-alexandra-after-immigrant-shops-closed-down/. Many South Africans cannot tolerate fellow Africans from countries north of our border no matter how long they have lived here or that they are legal residents.  Of course, the cowardly shooter fled, and we don’t know for sure why he committed this savage crime.

The decolonisation movement is an ongoing program to expunge all vestiges of our colonial history from the country except, of course, the arbitrary colonial borders. It is becoming more and more difficult to immigrate to South Africa.  This is part of a global populist swing to isolationism and seeing immigrants as being responsible for the problems in your country. If only we could send all the immigrants back to their country-of-origin utopia awaits.

I can’t claim to have really known Max that well, but he was an indelible part of the fabric of my reality. What is wrong with us that we hate our fellow human beings so much? My heartfelt condolences to his friends and family.

The topic of crime in Johannesburg and South Africa is an extremely emotive one. There are very few long-term Johannesburg residents who have not been a victim of crime at some point including being held up at gunpoint. It is not a topic that I generally would like to blog about, but this week is an exception.

In September 2003 when Connor was 21 days old, we were held up, at gunpoint, in our house on a Sunday evening for 3 hours. We were tied up while our house was ransacked, and our cars filled with our belongings before the criminals drove away in them.  It was a traumatic experience. I can’t tell you how you should react to this and what you should do. People respond differently. Many people have sold up everything in South Africa and they have emigrated. That is one response. I understand and respect this.

A decade or so ago it was extremely difficult to get your children into the top private schools in Johannesburg. There were long waiting lists and entrance exams. When your children were born you needed to put them on the waiting list. This is no longer the case. The schools are no longer full. Johannesburg has been facing a steady exodus of high-income people who are either semigrating to the Western Cape or leaving the country entirely. Crime is one of the contributing factors but the state of the economy, corruption, and the looting and riots of July last year is accelerating the trend.

Maybe I’m dumb but my response has been different, and it has not been to run away. In 2003 I joined the Rosebank Community Policing Forum (CPF) and decided to track down the criminals who held us up. Using cell phone technology, I succeeded in identifying them and linking them to many other crimes. Now it was over to the police, and they tracked them down and arrested them. It was a three-year-long, complicated, and emotionally draining process with escapes, probable corruption, re-arrests, and a long trial. It was an exhausting affair, and two out of the three criminals were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Not everyone has the stamina for this and I understand that.

Since my retirement, I have become the chair of the Rosebank CPF and I am in the news flow relating to serious crimes in Johannesburg. The popular narrative is that serious criminals operate with impunity in Johannesburg. The truth is that they do until they are caught. There is a high degree of collaboration between private security companies and the police. Johannesburg now has a sophisticated network of cameras linked to a fibre backbone. There is state-of-the-art image analysis using artificial intelligence software which includes number plate recognition and facial recognition. Although it may take months and sometimes years the serious criminals are tracked down.

Nerine was held up at the dentist by an armed criminal gang who were terrorising medical practices across Johannesburg in October last year. An elderly man returning to the Darrenwood retirement village was shot and killed by hijackers in January this year. Both sets of criminals have been arrested by the police and are in prison awaiting trial.

This week I met a 61-year-old man who lives on his own in the Rosebank policing area who has been shot on three separate occasions in his life. Recently he was confronted again by armed criminals in his house. He did not comply, and a fight ensued, and he was shot several times. He spent 3 weeks in hospital and is recovering. The police and the security company were in the vicinity and heard the shots and a wild car chase and shootout ensued. One of the criminals was shot and killed, one escaped and the others were arrested and are in prison awaiting trial. This is however an unusual story. Since my involvement in the Rosebank CPF in 2003, there have been a handful of shootings in the Rosebank precinct. It is not the norm.

Johannesburg is not for sissies. What now needs to happen is that Max’s murderer needs to be hunted down, arrested, convicted, and sent to jail. It can be done.

Will Johannesburg continue its slide into a failed dysfunctional city? I don’t know but it is only determined residents who can turn it around. There are still many of them.

Next week I promise to talk about all things bright and beautiful.

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions and please keep them coming.

Regards

Bruce