It might turn out to be the longest dance in history, a dance-athon of 36 000 toyi-toyied steps from the Joburg city centre to Sandton.
Perhaps thousands of Julius Malema’s supporters will join him on an economic freedom march that will leave from Beyers Naudé Square and head to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in Sandton on Thursday.
Ahead of them is a walk of about 17km – and there was no way, said former ANC Youth League secretary-general Vuyelwa Tulelo, that they would be walking.
“We will be toyi-toying. That is what we always do, so it is going to be hard going,” she said, before showing off the blue takkies she will be marching in.
On Tuesday, The Star decided to follow in Juju’s dancing shoes before he had even danced in them, and we headed to Sandton.
We didn’t toyi-toyi, we walked. And that was hard going as temperatures climbed into the early 30°s.
What we found was a city wary of a repeat of August, when Malema’s supporters ran amok in the CBD, pelting police officers and journalists with rocks and bricks.
Across the road from Beyers Naudé Square, in President Street, windows are still pockmarked and in places smashed from the rocks that youth league members threw that day.
From the square, the march will head up Simmonds Street through the city’s banking district, then across Queen Elizabeth Bridge. It is on the bridge that hawker Colin Phakathi sells muffins, scones and koeksisters. He is worried that the marchers might loot his food, but he has decided that all those thousands of marchers might just be good for business.
He is getting extra stock for on Thursday.
On Rissik street, many of those rushing to work on Tuesday were less concerned about the march. “It doesn’t really bother me,” said Beauty Sibanda with a shrug of her shoulders.
Jogger Dave Formby at first thought we were talking about Nelson Mandela marching to Sandton.
“Hey, that’s pretty good going for a guy in his 90s,” he said.
Then, when told it was Malema, he was sceptical the youth leader would make it.
“He will take the golf cart,” Formby predicted.
As Victoria Road crosses the M1 motorway, the highrises of the inner city fall away and are replaced by the walled houses of the middle class.
This is a place of extremes.
On a traffic island, Knowledge Zondi tries to peddle the Homeless Talk newspaper to luxury-car drivers who, for the most part, ignore him.
Zondi is a Malema man.
“He will bring better things. I want him to be my president,” he said.
As Malema toyi-toyis down Oxford Road on Thursday, he might feel a cold shiver. This is ghost territory. It is where the Randlords once lived, those early capitalists whose descendants the youth league leader riles against in his speeches.
The bogeyman in Malema’s rants, the Stellenbosch mafia as he calls them, could trace their ancestry to this leafy part of Joburg.
If Malema looks closely, he might see the ruins of Albert Victor Lindbergh’s house on Oxford road. In 1892 Lindbergh was a co-founder of CNA, and the company survives on Wednesday.
In Rosebank, opposite the Gautrain station, the owner of the Rosebank Mews Café, Tony Nait, is concerned about the march. He heard about the violence in the city centre. But he is a businessman, and his café is strategically placed. The Rosebank Mews Café is the halfway point on the march, and in a fridge there is a good stock of that preferred drink of the young lions – Heineken.
“We will have to see what happens and hope for the best,” said Nait. “Maybe Malema will support us. He has a lot of money.”
From Rosebank, the going gets tougher. It is a gradual incline towards Sandton, and there will be the midday heat to contend with.
The marchers reaching Sandton will be reminded that this is the territory of the rich: private schools, with evergreen playing fields, glass malls and tourists.
There are a few posters in Sandton advertising the march, but they are hard to spot.
When the ANCYL finally reach the stock exchange, they will hand over a memorandum.
Then they will have another problem. After all that toyi-toying, it will be time for a late lunch.
But in the territory of the rich, finding a pizza for under R100 to carbo-load for the long night vigil ahead on the lawns of the Union Buildings is going to be hard. - The Star