Cape Town - where the streets have new names?

Cape Town's streets might have new names by 2011 but street name changes needn't be a cul de sac of conflict.

The street name debate is back, and it's a tricky one.  On the one hand, how would you feel being given a name that's not yours? And on the other hand, how would you feel if you came home to find someone had renamed your children?  

Our attachment to names runs deep into the fractures that form a collective South African identity. It's about independence and belonging, history and equality, it hinges off definitive and irreconcilable concepts that drive our lives and our sense of place. And now Cape Town is picking up the ball.

'Tread lightly' isn't only a green issue

In a call to continue the reconciliatory processes that have rechristened the city of gold and the banana republic, Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has cautioned the City of Cape Town to proceed with care as it reconvenes the street naming process.

It has proceeded with care for the past three years, so much care that the process was stalled for elections. The report was never fully completed. The reasons for this are unclear, but Zille, who was mayor at the time, felt that the report was withdrawn because it could polarise Cape Town residents.

"The problem with the past process was that it was creating polarisation and conflict instead of unity. I would have recast such a process whenever it occurred, before or after an election. It had to be reconceptualised." she commented.

Reconceptualise the forest or the trees?

Possession is nine tenths of the law, yes, but negotiating new territory peacefully is never that simple, whether it's intellectual, emotional, social or political territory.  Durban High Court Judge David Ntshangase recently ruled against an attempt by the DA and IFP to overturn the city's street renaming process when they tried to ignore the council's decision to rename 100 streets, roads and highways, and two buildings.

The question is, whose responsibility or jurisdiction is it, anyway? Ours, I say, but when the city opened the process to the public, a paltry 238 suggestions came in over three weeks (May, 2007). Maybe we've learnt to stand up from the World Cup and can try again? With public submissions closed, media is the place to play this one. After all, Madiba made the accountability of our leaders quite clear - "it is our task as leaders to place our views before our organisation and to allow the democratic structures to decide."

What's in a name? A rose is a roos is irozi, right?

If we leave out the judgement, maybe we can all be winners? If we are to live harmoniously, we need to accept that everyone has a story. Here are a few more prominent ones, which may lead us to ask, six of one, and half a cousin of the other? See if you can spot the deference and the black-and-white-washing.

Hertzog Boulevard (Cape Town) to Nelson Mandela Boulevard
Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, Hertzog J. B. M. was instrumental in 'stealing' the vote from Cape Coloured citizens by giving it to white women. Nelson Mandela, the first democratic president of a post apartheid South Africa, is famous for giving freedom to everyone when he finally received his own in 1994.

Oswald Pirow Street (Foreshore) to Christiaan Barnard Drive
A lawyer, politician and Nazi sympathiser, Oswald Pirow was instrumental in the apartheid government. Christiaan Barnard is famous for the first successful heart transplant. From heartlessness to a new heart? an apt symbol. if you forget that Oswald loved his family, and Christiaan cheated on his wife.

Jan Smuts Drive to Dullah Omar Drive, but only from Athlone to Strandfontein Road
Jan Smuts was a South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher in the first apartheid Cabinet. Dullah Omar was an anti-Apartheid activist, lawyer, and a minister in the South African cabinet from 1994. Sounds good. Except the placement of the name change has prompted accusations of racism from ANC chief whip Peter Gabriel, highlighting how important context is in the process of cultural repatriation.

One man's treasure is another man's gain?

While our question cultural re/appropriation and national evolution is key, Zille's encouragement balances her caution. She feels "we need to create a process of unity. We should focus on naming rather than renaming." That's positive as well as practical.

My suggestion?  Before analysing the symbolic resonance of street names past and future, we should all figure out where we are in the present. Now, you may have noticed the intermittent absence of road signs in urban areas, let alone rural ones, so bear in mind that finding ourselves it's not always going to be easy whether geographically or symbolically. We may just have to ask each other for directions.

Call it what you like, TIA ("This Is Africa" a common travel phrase) and we're in it together.

Jess Henson
11 July 2010

p.s. Road crossing to get to the other side? Remember to look left AND right.

How did we come to this? Take a look at Cape Town over time.  In other debates, the vuvuzela. Is it an instrument of national torture or could the vuvuzela be the nation's new musical instrument?  OK, enough thinking and talking about roads; let's get ON  the road.  There is a range of super cars for hire in Cape Town.