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Is the Fairest Cape a pretty foul place, too?
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November 27, 2009
By Bianca Coleman
Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
We know this not only because we live in it, but because everyone else keeps telling us it is so, and urge tourists to visit it before they die. What they fail to mention is several Capetonians die here every day through violent crime.
To be fair, this doesn't only happen in Cape Town. Donal MacIntyre has travelled around the globe seeking out the World's Toughest Towns (Discovery, Sundays at 11pm). Two weeks ago he went to Paris and this Sunday it's Naples. It might be a bit of an ostrich attitude along with a healthy dose of Mother City patriotism, but when picking a South African city for this show, I'd have expected him to choose Johannesburg, like Louis Theroux did when he gave his security detail heart palpitations by insisting on exploring a Hillbrow tenement by night.
Then again, perhaps the point is to highlight cities that are better known for their beauty and then flip them over and view the seedy underbelly.
Paris is the city of lights and the city of lovers. There can be few places more romantic. But outside the city itself, the suburbs are rife with racism and riots. Second generation immigrants from North Africa and law enforcement clash regularly; although the extended rioting in 2005 and 2007 were well documented around the world, it's a weekly occurrence albeit on a slightly smaller scale.
MacIntyre's style is balanced - he tries to get all sides of the story, from interviewing police and citizens to gangsters and activists who incite hate crimes. He went to visit Le Bosquet, a suburb about 17km outside Paris, and although he enlisted the protection of a local named Zid he was still surprised when he came back to his car to find the window smashed and the camera stolen. Zid shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn't understand how anyone would do such a thing.
The opening and subsequent sequences of the Cape Town episode showed plenty of shots of Camps Bay and the V&A Waterfront, as well as some lions and Ndebele women. There was a lot of creative licence taken with the editing, yet viewers will naturally take it at face value. It's a little disconcerting because you realise that not even documentaries are true reflections of their topics. It's like watching something with subtitles while understanding the original language, and seeing the translations are not entirely accurate.
Cape Town was introduced as one of the most stunning places in the world, "beautiful and deadly and in the grip of a violent crime wave". Like Paris, however, this is not taking place at the sleek, glossy tourist attractions, but on the Cape Flats and in the townships. The juxtaposition of a luxury yacht in the harbour and corrugated iron shacks drives home the point.
Included in the programme are self-defence classes for "students united by their common fear of crime", the thriving private security industry, the Hout Bay neighbourhood watch, a visit to the morgue where each of the pathologists are only allowed to perform three autopsies a day or else they will "lose the plot", a gun shop and shooting range, and riding along with the flying squad in the townships.
I'm not sure how much of the irony is intended. When MacIntyre tags along with the cops, they give him a bulletproof jacked with "POLICE" emblazoned across it. Why they don't just paint a bull's-eye I don't know. Within minutes they were at the scene of what the police have nicknamed a "lovers' quarrel" - man shoots woman then self. Blanket-covered bodies with one sandalled-foot revealed, blood seeping into the pavement shown in loving close-up. Through reality or clever editing filmed in gritty night vision, MacIntyre was witness to many more crimes as they happened.
"Unbelievable," he intoned gravely into the camera. "Unbelievable."
Over in Hout Bay, two ladies of a certain age hopped into a hatchback and roared off in a cloud of smoke from a protesting gearbox. "Sorry," said the driver. "I'll get it right one day." They cruised the leafy avenues, eyeing out the men loitering under trees. "He's walking very fast for an African," noted one of them suspiciously. Their big crime of the day was a stolen cellphone.
In another segment, MacIntyre went to meet some tik addicts. Since the drug causes paranoid delusions and violent behaviour MacIntyre was concerned about the potential mood of the addicts. He need not have worried. After arriving and smoking a quick straw, the spokesman emerged from the cupboard and declared the heavens were now open, and that he was feeling light and energetic. He did concede though that once the straw was finished they would have to get more soon or they would run around like mad people.
"What's in it," MacIntyre inquired. "You don't want to know," they answered, waving around a five-litre bottle of industrial bleach. They then listed a string of ingredients anyway, include Rattex and toilet cleaner. Yummy.
After interviewing Ellen Pakkies, the woman who murdered her tik addict son, claiming he had abused her for years, MacIntyre promised that now he had spoken to the users and the victims, he would investigate those who pulled the strings of the narcotics industry.
There were hints at the Russian mafia and the Chinese triads, but this segment fizzled out like a damp squib with an interview with Shane Harrison of Mavericks and something about Yuri The Russian - who was gunned down more than two years ago. It was all a little bit outdated and vague.
It's always interesting to see how foreign journalists portray your own city.
I'm not saying MacIntyre is off the mark, but noticing the small liberties that are taken to present a rather sensational programme will make me think twice before believing everything I watch about Naples this Sunday.
IN THE WEEK
Royal Pains (M-Net, Tuesday at 7.30pm): When a hospital trustee dies on Dr Hank Lawson's watch, he is shunned by the medical community.
Later, at a party in the Hamptons, he saves the life of a guest and stumbles upon a new career as an on-call doctor for high society.
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