Exercise 6: Joggers and Cyclists caused the decline of the Suburb Culture

When I was at school the street was where children played. We played soccer, cricket and touch rugby in the street.

At any point in time you can leave your homework and walk onto the street, there will be someone else also avoiding homework and we could develop our social skills. Before you go to bed you can simply walk onto the street and there will be someone to talk to. This is where you got to know the other children in the street, and, if you were lucky, get to meet girls.

During the day there would be the jingle of ice-cream carts (children today do not know what I am talking about) and even fruit and vegetable vendors. Children today do not realize the origin of the vendor shouting Mielies in the comic series.

Now you can drive through the streets I used to play in (Bellville and Parkhurst) and you will be lucky if you see even one kid. Children don’t know the other children in the neighbourhood. They play in hidden places where their parents cannot see them, and hence they can easily start to take drugs.

This decline of the social role of suburban streets happened so slowly that people did not realize the big threat it is to society. People also did not realize that this is nearly 100% due to joggers and cyclists.

Dogs recognize joggers and cyclists as people involve in something that is not natural, and therefore try to chase them away from their area.

Generally dogs do not bother people that walk past at a reasonable pace and who will be saying things like ‘Nice Doggy’ and getting of their bicycles to give them a pat on the head. At least, they did not when there were people like this on the streets. Now there are not people like this on the streets – only joggers and cyclists. Look out of your window, if you can see the street, if you do not believe me.

Joggers and cyclists were never nice about dogs chasing and biting them. They did not attempt to take any of the blame. They are not the type of people that think they are to blame for anything.

So, during the 70’s and 80’s when joggers started to jog one would regularly have someone in funny clothes ringing your bell:
“YOUR DOG BIT ME!”
“The little fox-terrier standing behind you waving its tail?”
“YES YOUR DOG BIT ME, LOOK HERE”
“That little scratch? There is no blood”
“YOUR DOG BIT ME, I AM REPORTING YOU TO THE POLICE”
“They are going to take my fox-terrier to jail?”
“YOUR DOG BIT ME, THEY WILL ARREST YOU”
“I did not nip you!”
“I’M CALLING MY LAWYER, YOUR DOG BIT ME. HE IS A MENACE TO SOCIETY”
“Did you do anything to provoke my fox-terrier? Tease it? Dress in funny clothes? Behave like a mad man?”
“MY LAWEYR WILL SUE THE HELL OUT OF YOU AND THE VICIOUS MONGREL THAT BIT ME!”
“But the fox terrier does not have any money.”
“THIS IS NOT A JOKING MATTER! YOU ARE THE OWNER AND YOUR DOG BIT ME. I AM SUING YOU!”
“Actually my 5 year old son, who is hiding behind my legs because you frighten him, is the owner, and he also does not have any money.”
“DON’T BE FACETIOUS, YOUR VICIOUS MONSTER BIT ME. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT”
“Say ‘I’m sorry’?”
“IF I COME PASS HERE AGAIN AND SEE YOUR DOG I AM GOING TO KILL IT! YOUR DOG BIT ME.”
“It did not kill you, it nipped you. If it will make you feel better I will hold it so you can give it a nip?”
“STOP BEING FACETIOUS. YOU ARE IN DEEP …”
“Please don’t use language like this in front of the kids”

Joggers do not learn. The next morning ones bell would ring again, again at 7am. And the same jogger wearing the same ridiculous clothes will report that your fox-terrier viciously mauled him.

Non-joggers were being polite – which is in their nature. Instead of trying to placate joggers we should have said things like:
“Just wait here, I want to bring the pit-bull from the back yard.”
“So why did you not run a bit faster to get away from the dog?”
“F… Off!!”

What we did was to build walls around our properties to keep our dogs inside. Fox terriers jump over 6 foot walls so our walls are 10 to 12 feet high.

Along with the dogs we were now keeping our children inside. They stopped playing touch rugby and cricket because it is no fun if you cannot kick/hit the ball into someone prize rose garden. One can clearly see the effects of this on our national rugby and cricket teams. (Jacques Kallis comes from the platteland where they still played cricket in the street.)

Children, now hiding inside their gardens, had privacy to start taking pot and drink their fathers’ whiskey. It is even probable that since they did not develop any social skills with other children in the street they also became joggers.
I recently went to Soweto for a wedding. There children are playing in the street. Grownups are standing at their gates socializing. Dogs wag their tails. Ice-cream carts are ringing their bells joyously. Everybody knows everybody on the street. People are relaxed and smiling.

The reason is that large parts of Soweto are juppy-free. I did not see one jogger in Soweto’s streets. (I saw aspirant boxers running, but they were swinging their arms, had an upright posture, lifted their feet, occasionally made a few dance-steps and waved at people because they had to practice how they would wave in the ring after knocking the other guy out. So they do not count as joggers.)

Compare this with the streets in Sandton where the up-tight, juppy joggers live. It is very difficult to understand why anyone would want to live in Sandton given the type of neighbours you are likely to have.

The biggest exodus from South Africa to places like Australia comes out of up market juppie neighbourhoods like Sandton, Rivonia, Waterkloof, Sea Point, Kloof, etc.

People in these areas look at the social decline that has set in upper-class suburbia.

To rectify this they set up neighbourhood watches, and the first advice given to a neighbourhood watch is: GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOUR. Which is exactly what the neighbourhood made impossible by the big walls they built to keep the joggers away from their dogs.

When the neighbourhood watch does not work, because not enough people join, because they don’t want to meet their neighbours, these people blame the neighbourhood. They believe that the solution does not involve moving to Soweto they move to other countries – like Australia.

What they don’t realize is that the neighbourhood is what it is because of the people that form the neighbourhood (this is the dictionary meaning of neighborhood). When these people move to other neighbourhoods they are taking the problem with them, they are the problem. So then end in places like Perth (Australia) which has the biggest population of South Africans outside South Africa.

I lectured in Perth for a few months so I can comment on the neighbourhood there with great expertise.

Because the type of people that emigrate are the type of people that they are nothing changes. The Australians do not want to make friends with them either. Soon these emigrants end up with only South African friends – who are mostly the same type of people as them because they also emigrated because they are also the type of people that emigrate.

So Perth comprise of little groups of ex-South Africans that are friends only with ex-South Africans and all that they have in common is that they all come from neighbourhoods that did not like them, and now live in neighbourhoods that does not like the. This means that all they can talk about is how bad the neighbourhood was that they came from, or, how unfriendly the neighbourhood is to them now.

Obviously the exodus from the country would be much less if places like Sandton were just nicer places to live in. But, given the type of people that live there, this is unlikely to happen.

I am not suggesting that as part of the Lion and springbok exercise program you should sell your house in Sandton and move to Soweto. You will probably feel out in Soweto, because they do not like joggers there either. You can, if you happen to live in Sandton start the Exercise Program and try to turn Sandton into a friendlier environment in which to live.

As Sandton becomes friendlier and people walk in the streets (instead of jogging or power-walking or cycling) the people will get to know their neighbours. Since people are on the street they would not need a neighbourhood watch which co-opt residents to drive patrols at night, the streets will be automatically patrolled because of the residents walking around in them. Crime will decrease. Walls will come down so that the dogs can also patrol the whole neighbourhood instead of providing burglars the easy option of just poisoning ones dogs.

With the walls coming down the neighbours can now keep watch on each others house. Neighbours will also know when a car that should not be in the drive is in the drive because the neighbours will know each others cars.
There are a lot of social wrongs, other than just the anti-smoking laws, that the joggers should be called to responsibility for. I envisage a Nuremburg type trial, but maybe we can just ask them to confess in front a reconciliation commission – non joggers are forgiving types