Johannesburg celebrated its 130th birthday this week. There wasn’t much fanfare; no blowing out of candles and no singing. And, by international standards, it’s a pretty junior birthday. We don’t have centuries-old cathedrals and buildings, and the oldest etch dating a building you will see driving through town is something like 1909.
Nonetheless, we have a proud(ish) history. There are so many landmarks in the city and surrounds that a former colleague and I try to take one Saturday a month to walk around and see what we can of it.
There are even heritage tours and open-top bus rides to try.
I wonder how many fellow Joburgers take advantage of these opportunities?
If you pop along to Wikipedia, it will tell you that Jozi was established as a small village controlled by a health committee in 1886 after the discovery of an outcrop of a gold reef on the Langlaagte farm.
Sadly, that’s where the illegal miners were trapped recently.
Gold has always had its own special allure. Children pick up quartz stones and excitedly point at veins of pyrite, or fool’s gold. It’s no wonder that desperate people - without any other hope of something resembling an income - go underground where they can to find what they can.
It’s what made this the City of Gold. The city of dreams.
While Joburg no longer has call on the moniker, it’s still a drawcard for those seeking the yellow brick road.
(Joburg’s oldest working mine, incidentally, is at Gold Reef City. You can legally pop underground and see the conditions under which miners back then worked.
It really isn’t all that anymore.
South African Breweries dates its history back to 1895 - making it a historical icon that is as old as SA’s first industry.
On its website, it notes its origins lie in the Johannesburg gold rush of 1886.
“Digging for gold under Africa’s sun was thirsty work, and enterprising brewers seized the opportunity to refresh the booming population. Foremost among these was Charles Glass, founder of the Castle Brewery. Glass was a perfectionist who would sell only the highest-quality beer, and his thriving business soon caught the attention of investors.”
That company is pretty much gone, despite Anheuser-Busch InBev’s promises of protecting its heritage. Its name will disappear into the sands of time once the mega-deal incorporating AB InBev and SABMiller - for more than $100 million - closes.
Johannesburg itself became a municipality in 1897. In 1928 it became a city, making Johannesburg the largest city in South Africa.
It’s a city built on gold - not rock ‘n roll.
And that gold is, well, pretty much mined out.
So, frankly, is our economy. We expect economic growth to be flat this year, compared to last year. The International Monetary Fund reckons it will come in at 0.8 percent next year.
Ouch.
Never mind jobless growth, that’s no growth.
Let’s face it: what this city was built on is gone.
It’s time for a new narrative, a new Joburg, a new future. We can’t rely on a metal that we once produced in abundance and was shiny in the world’s eyes when we all relied on the gold standard.
That yellow metal will gain in popularity in times of strife, and lose again in times of plenty.
It’s our time to shine.
Let’s build the next legacy company together.
* Nicola Mawson is the online editor of Business Report. Follow her on Twitter @NicolaMawson or Business Report @busrep.
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