One park, two tragedies, the same gloomy story
When I learnt that a missing jogger had been found dead in Johannesburg, I scrutinized the 12 July article in the Citizen to learn if he had done something I would never do, or if my strategies for safety needed revision.
Another article, richer in detail, on News24, named the jogger and described him as a well-built Joburg architect with blue eyes. It told of the only slightly odd outfit he had been sporting when he disappeared around midday June 24. It said that his body had been found by community members, and it testified to the distress and bewilderment of his family, through a cousin’s Facebook-post:
“His unfathomable disappearance is hard for our minds and challenging for our hearts. One of ‘us’ is missing and possibly hurting. There is a void. An emptiness. A lack of concrete information. A mystery that we are containing.”
Times-Live’s 12 July account also featured the family’s resort to social media in their search for the man, ‘who went missing after leaving his home to jog.’
Even more concerned, I googled and found a post on the not-so-savory online forum My Broadband, citing the News24-article.
The second comment under the post quotes a passage of the article, with the parts that read ‘jogging around Zoo Lake’ and ‘He was not wearing any shoes.’ underlined. It also quotes a passage from an article in the Sandton Chronicle, written three days after the disappearance. The search for the missing architectural assistant, who had last been seen by a friend in Parkwood, the passage says, will begin in Randburg where he ‘had allegedly been seen using drugs’.
Cut back to 9 January when News24 reported at 1pm that ‘an alleged thief drowned’ that morning. According to the article a 23-old man had been arrested with a companion in the early morning, ‘after they allegedly stole gate remote controls’ in Greenside. He had been taken to the Parkview Police Station, escaped, injured a leg and an arm, jumped into the nearby Zoo Lake and drowned.
Rosebank-Killarney Gazette’s reporting the same day includes the deceased man’s name. On My Broadband, a link to News24’s reporting is found as well as a comments-field of xenophobia and flippant remarks on his choice of flight-strategy.
In January, it took me a moment, after having driven past the sealed off Zoo Lake and after having consulted Twitter, to learn that the young man, whose body was being retrieved, had been involved in criminal activity — allegedly. A couple of months later, it took a while longer to learn the same of the alleged jogger in addition to his name, eye color, body constitution, outfit and the pain of his family members.
Two tragedies, one park, the same gloomy story.
It is the story that tells us that the only thing more alarming than people disappearing and dying, is people blessed with unambiguous markers of middleclass-respectability, disappearing and dying.
It is the story laying down that for one’s disappearance to be perceived as a mystery and one’s death a tragedy, one should not just wear clean underwear at all times. One must also be part of the kind of ‘us’, which is surrounded by conspicuous quotation marks that hint of a deeper, more sinister meaning than ‘us as a family’.
This story is not accidental. It is not the result of newsroom budget cuts resulting in less time for research and adequate reporting. This story is not news, but uses current affairs and events to impose itself. It is told in neighbourhood-Whatsapp-groups and reverberates through gentrified war-cries to take back the city.
This story cements the domination of the kind of ‘us’, which could not exist without a ‘them’. This story, which is made up and sustained by human beings, fear and entitlement, is a reminder that one has better belong in the posh community where one’s remains are found.
