The death toll keeps rising on that five-story apartment block fire in Johannesburg, South Africa. The building is described as "run-down," owned by "municipal authorities" and is known to house "criminal gangs." Definitely more questions than answers.
By coincidence, exactly 35 years ago to the day (August 31st), another Johannesburg building (this one six-story) suffered a similar fate. Khoso House, according to Adam Hochschild's The Mirror Midnight (1989), "provided office space for a wide variety of other opposition organizations, from women's groups to a multi-racial photographers' collective," (143) Unlike the more recent fire, this one began as an explosion: a car bomb parked beside the building's elevator shaft.
No mention of the 1988 explosion in any of the reporting on this recent fire. Funny how that happens. If no one remembers it, does that mean it doesn't exist, even if someone says it did?
South Africa's past is a horrific intersection of male chauvinism, racialization and punitive class politics, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still be talking about it, that we have a more progressive present to distract us. If anyone thinks our progressive present is any better, read History, and read it widely.
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