Twenty years after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, and with all the doom and gloom going around, there is one issue that has upset me for a while. It’s not HIV/Aids, or crime, or violence against women, or unemployment, or the lack of proper housing for poor people, or drug abuse on the Cape Flats, even though these issues upset me too.
No, the issue that I have been thinking about as the country and the world celebrated the 20th anniversary of what was a great day in our country’s history is: street names.
This is particularly a bone of contention for people living in the Western Cape, where DF Malan, Oswald Pirow, Hendrik Verwoerd and the like still dominate street names in the city centre and what used to be known as “whites-only” suburbs in the bad old days of apartheid.
Mandela, Steve Biko, Samora Machel, Chris Hani, Oliver Tambo, Oscar Mpetha and other high-calibre leaders are commemorated in what used to be (no, still are) “black” townships, such as Khayelitsha and Phillippi.
It irritates me no end, and makes me ashamed to be a citizen of Cape Town and the Western Cape when I drive through Khayelitsha and I see streets named in honour of these leaders.
I’m glad that they are honoured but not in this ghetto fashion. It is almost as if Mandela and the others fought for the liberation of black people only, and so they must be honoured in black townships only.
I understand the arguments by some people who believe that it is expensive to change street names, and that this could have an implication on businesses which operate in these streets.
I also understand the arguments of people who say that we should not be honouring politicians by naming streets after them.
However, if it is okay to change street names in the townships, then why can’t we change street names in the city centre? Is it okay for township people to have the expense of changing their street addresses and not people in the city centre?
Also, while I agree it is difficult to honour living politicians because you never know what they will get up to after being honoured, there is nothing wrong with honouring politicians after they have passed away or, at the very least, retired.
In a city like Cape Town, that already gets accused of being unfriendly towards black Africans, it is important for our city fathers and mothers to be sensitive to this issue.
When Helen Zille was mayor of Cape Town, she commissioned a working group to come up with possible name changes. This group, under the leadership of Rhoda Kadalie, produced what I thought was a fair report, given the city’s divisive history. However, nothing happened after they delivered their report.
It galls me to drive around in the city centre where almost every street name harks back to the bad days of apartheid, while township streets celebrate the leaders who fought for our liberation: not only for black liberation, but for the liberation of all.
Oliver Tambo and the other leaders I have mentioned above lived by Mandela’s words that he first uttered during his trial and repeated on his release: “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination.”
Why should this man, and others who share his views, be honoured in the black townships only?
It’s so nice that you have the audacity to whine about something as insignificant as street names while people are starving. This spoiled attitude of the elites is the truly offensive aspect to the renaming process. ‘Oh I feel _so_ angry looking at that name!’ Do you really think starving beggars care if they are looking for a handout on Jan Smuts Drive or Hugo Chavez Boulevard? How many can actually read either name thanks to our beleagured educational system that categorically fails our poor? Please let’s get our priorities straight and abandon the obsession with form over content.
While I appreciate the political correctness, as always, that the DA displays with the whole independant consultation thing, I have a shorter cheaper answer to the whole naming thing. Simply do not name them after people. Statues? Cute. We are running out of space in Cape Town anyway, bring the remaining ones down. Instead, put up a wall of sorrow midtown for all the species that have become extinct in the Cape Peninsula so that we can remember the real victims in the human landgrabbing war. Let the Environmental Department decide what boards may go up where.
There is no need to change the names of structures that already exist, the current GOVT must erect its own structures to honour the anti-apartheid icons. I am tired of the Mandelas, Tambos, Hanis and the Mbekis street naming. Why do we repeat the same model that the apartheid GOVT used wherein every city in SA has Voortrekker, Mowbray, Verwoed, Botha etc. Why do we rename s street in venda or Polokwane after the Mandelas, Mbekis, Tambos as if we don’t have our own local heroes. We should be careful when we start renaming streets because we run the risk of compromising the effort put forward by our indigenous and unsung heroes. Why the renaming process has to adopt political directions? Is politics the only source of our cultural heritage? If so, I say ‘to hell; with political icons. I suggest we start looking at other aspects that hold us together as a nation.
@ Obzino…some points:
1/ There is no need for us to be “hunting down faults” when the media and civil society provide us with daily examples of “faults”
2/ Your use of words like “defeat” have a sinister ring but you might find this easier said than done
3/ You refer to the “highest level of common sense”
and this has to be a joke given the broad based failure of the ANC to govern effectively
4/ You will find that we are not really inclined to “submit” to ideological pressure
The Cape Town i know is not doing much for the previously disadvantaged at. There is sewerage running down the streets of Philippi, Du noon, Gugulethu and many other areas day and night, ZThere is no housing provision for the people, no proper refuse removal and you call that good performance!
I stay in middle class areas, it takes 15 minutes for the City to unblack drains, but in Du Noon it takes 3 days yet the depot is just 1.5 km away and you call that service delivery! Delivery to who??
How many houses in the past three years have actually been built by the City of Cape Town ? you compare that to those build by the provincial government in the same period. See if will will call that good service delivery.
People don’t care to find out what the majory which happen to be power are experiancing here in Cpe Twon. We look at thesee beutifull places and conclude that the DA is performing. Don’t get me wrong i am not saying the ANC is doing well. We should rather say which of two devils is better, because what you see in Balfour, Sharpville is exactlly what you will see in Cape Town sooner that later.
You know Ryland this is a chosen mindset. Suddenly there were car guards & washers wherever I went and it almost made me ill with anger. I hadn’t needed them b4 etc. Then I had my car damaged by one of them twice in the same place & I was nearly physically attacked when two of them fought over whose parking bay it was and who should get the money. R2-00 was worth dying for? I decided that the R2-00 was nothing really if I had it and I was making myself ill over nothing so I stopped being angry and gave them the little change I had graciously. Shopping was simpler that way. Then one who I saw regularly saved me getting a R500 fine.(I went back and gave him R150.)If you do not like those streets avoid them or alternatively look at the road and not the street names. I also find the names of Verwoerd etc objectionable but Smuts? He got the UN started without which ANC may have struggled even longer! I’m 60 and I hardly recall who Malan was FGS’s. Prioritise please.1st feed the hungry on X street and THEN change the name of the street to something totally neutral like Aloe or Spekboom or Khoisan.No more people or “Heroes of the struggle” in older areas. You want them name new suburbs or streets or whatever you choose. Pettiness only stirs up opens old wounds. First things first.
um, sibusiso:
the housing delivery is a red herring. the interference by the anc in the provision of housing by the city of cape town is fairly well documented — up to and including the provincial election, where the anc-led provincial government transferred a lot of land to the national government’s domain, specifically to stymie plans for a non-anc provincial government’s intended housing provisions.
re: sewage. geologically speaking, most of the city of cape town should not exist [and until fairly recently, it didn't]; the water table is too high and the ground is too sandy. we could go to the places in philippi and crossroads and nyanga where there is sewage running, and i could probably tell you in less than 30 minutes if the houses were there *before* the right type of underground plumbing structure existed to support it.
something that i do for kicks is look at old and new maps of the city. one thing i quickly figured out is why many of the open spaces originally existed in both the suburbs and the townships: drainage — plants bring up the water, which is then evaporated. transpiration is your friend. build on or near the drainage spaces, and you will get regular flooding, poor sewerage control, or both, depending on the type of structure built and how many people move there.
a proper fix of the sewerage infrastructure would involve throwing a lot of people out of their houses. however, this is politically untenable.
I have no problem with renaming places etc. When I moved from the old SA to the new country I was surprised to find I still live in SA.
However, in Durban street names have been changed BUT the government agencies still send bills to the old names. My post won’t be delivered unless it goes to the old name. I cannot order pizza under the new name.
So someone can change the name BUT no one can change the system.
Any of you don’t like the way Cape Town is run are free to go and experience delivery in any ANC run municipality. Truth is blacks are running to CT from ANC run areas.
@PIOT. Surely we just have to do all of this? Get the fascists of our streeet names, systematically & progressively address the massive inequalities in our society & go out of our way to ensure we care for ourselves, our families, other SAns & the environment?
@Michael Francis – I agree with you fully. Spot on comment.
Hi again Sibusiso. I see that someone has answered why things are the way they are in Phillippi. The other side of the story is that there are limited numbers of people paying their municipal rates but new children being born in places including Phillippi all the time. Most of the people who live on those marshy areas were not originally from Cape Town and many are probably also illegal immigrants who chose to go to Cape Town and were alloed and facilitated by the ANC’s lack of border controls and pathetic corrupt Home Affairs officials. The ANC Govt do not want the ANC to do any better than they did so they also deliberately cut the budgets from the Treasury. Now given that you pay rates and taxes as well as VAT and probably SARS and live in middle income housing, where do you believe the money should be spent? How much debt I wonder does the Cape Town municipality not write off for things like unpaid and stolen electricity and water in the areas of Phillippi per year while people like you and I actually have our services terminated if we do not pay on time and get charged interest moreover. That hurts. Why should illegal immigrants and the jobless be given houses and free services when legal SA’ns who pay their taxes are not able to receive them. Sympathy is one thing but charity begins at home. They can go back where they came from.
So basically you would like to imitate the National Party?
Way to go, dude.
As a nation, South Africa is a country full of intelligent, but negative people. If we fight to show how we have transformed as nation by changing our street names, how convinced are we to be that apartheid is over. Anything symbolic of this societal transform in practicality and metaphysical is always shunned by some. I mean how can one say Mandela’s name as a street name must reside in the ghetto, because he is the hero of the ghetto fabulous people, where is the reconcilialtion all of a sudden? What is going to convince us as those who have suffered under apartheid and racism, that peace is the answer if those who negotiated this fragile peace, those who fought for a peaceful society are all of a sudden an inconvience in someone’s address and reviving of the rhetoric of service delivery to shun the symbolism of transformation in our country. Maybe we should not be wasting time co-existing and keep those heroes away and disconnected to the son’s and daughter’s coloniser’s and then we will see what kind of country we will have because those heroes made sure there was no blood shed 20 years ago when Mandela walked free. I support name changes fully until the statues of the coloniser’s come down, becuase it seems like no-one cares about transformation anyway, so why should we care the settler’s history?
It is always great to view someone speaking their own thoughts, and for that, many of us all are actually grateful. Thank you for the insight as well as the read.