Still names to be changed

WHENEVER the renaming of towns, streets, rivers and institutions is considered in South Africa, no matter how deservedly, it is bound to cause controversy. Further, the busts or statues of historical politicos and where they are situated have also evoked an emotional reaction from many.

Obviously some of the names need to be changed. We cannot leave everything as it was before 1994.

Names which include the K word, or any derivative thereof, and words denigrating the Khoi or San people are totally unacceptable. Such names have however been surreptitiously changed without a murmur.

Names from the past that conjure up memories of oppression and exploitation need to be expunged from the national discourse. Very few, if any, will today object to the name of H F Verwoerd being removed from the Port Elizabeth Airport.

What about names such as Grahamstown, Queenstown, Port Elizabeth and King William’s Town? Surely a need still exists for erasing the colonial and apartheid past.

Why would we then want to honour a Queen Victoria, a Cecil Rhodes or aP W Botha? The renaming of a section of the N1 (Table Bay Boulevard) in honour of F W de Klerk has seemingly not taken the sensitivities of many into consideration.

Why was De Klerk lauded in this way? He was steeped in Afrikaner Nationalist Party politics.

When we criticise the ANC government, and rightly so, for cronyism, jobs for pals, “commanders-in-thief”, etc, we seem to have forgotten the malfeasant politicians of the immediate past with absentee landlords and farm owners being cabinet ministers.

What then was the raison d’être for De Klerk being honoured? Was it because he released Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners from long-term incarceration?

Was it because he unbanned the ANC, the PAC and other political organisations? Surely not!

Mandela and Jeff Masemola should primarily not have been incarcerated, nor should the ANC or the PAC and other political organisations have been banned in the first place. But was there a more credible explanation?

All presidents are representative of the political system they serve. When the system needed an “iron fist” it chose Verwoerd, B J Vorster and Botha.

De Klerk was chosen because he represented a squeaky clean image that was bolstered by the “verligte” vote of the Cape. His eligibility for the presidency could however not be justified on this alone.

An extract from the editorial of the Daily News of April 18 1990 is worth quoting: “The country had little hope of meeting a massive R6-billion international debt that was due for repayment in the middle of this year. There was speculation about South African aircraft being seized on foreign runways, and ships and cargoes being confiscated if we reneged on this debt.

“What changed things was State President F W de Klerk’s change of political direction. A burst of foreign confidence, expressing itself as an inflow of investment capital, an easing of sanctions on foreign bank credit . . .”

This was the more plausible reason for the “change of heart” – it had nothing to do with rethinking the strategy and acceding to “one person, one vote”, but everything to do with the greed that is capitalism. Why would we then want to honour such a man?

The renaming of schools as recently suggested by Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi is bound to cause all hell to break loose. He suggested that names that were deemed to be offensive – schools named after Jan Smuts, Verwoerd, Lucas Mangope and Kaizer Matanzi- ma – be changed.

We can expect a contrary reaction from conservatives. While agreeing with Lesufi, it again shows up the contradictions and duplicity in the policies and practices of the ANC.

It gave Matanzima an “official funeral” with Thabo Mbeki delivering the eulogy and Mandela speaking warmly about him.

However, how does the renaming process apply to the schools of the disadvantaged? Prior to the 1950s most schools of the oppressed were mission schools and under the auspices of the churches. Schools were often named after churches and their priests. During the ‘ 50s when the ideological battle for the minds of our children was high on the agenda of the oppressor, and consequently the liberatory movement, the state decided to reduce the meagre subsidies of the mission schools and in so doing phasing out these schools.

Instead it built state schools under its direct control. While the original idea was laudable the apartheid state’s intentions were nefarious.

While many teachers fought valiantly against the machinations of the racist education departments and their menagerie of school inspectors, many collaborated with the apartheid regime in debasing education. Even the names of schools were imposed on unsuspecting communities in an attempt to indoctrinate the masses.

Notable among these were a number of the schools in Port Elizabeth that up to now carry the loaded baggage of an apartheid era name, such as De Vos Malan Primary School. De Vos Malan headed the commission investigating the transfer of education to a racially segregated Coloured Affairs Department.

G J Louw Primary has to thank an erstwhile superintendent-general of education for allowing his name to be imposed on an ill-informed community and Frank Joubert Primary bears the name of an administrator of the Cape under the apartheid government.

If schools and their communities so wish they may petition the state to have the names of those schools changed, but what about schools like De Vos Malan High in King William’s Town?

Fortunate among these schools established in the ‘ 50s were Dietrich Primary School in Schauderville, Port Elizabeth and Dietrich Moravian Primary in Phillipi, Cape Town that were named after Rev Ernst Dietrich, the Moravian minister from Goedverwacht in the Western Cape.

History is always the preserve of the ruling elite. It’s our duty to find suitable names that will not in later years come back to haunt us and that party politics in this instance will not be a factor.

What to do with the busts or statues of these erstwhile oppressors? Pierre de Vos, deputy dean of the law faculty at UCT, suggested tongue-in-cheek in an article entitled “Dancing on the grave of apartheid”, that these artifacts be housed in an “apartheid graveyard” and that frivolities take place at such venues. Many of the “previously disadvantaged” may find this amusing and some may even deem it appropriate.

But, at the same time the serious student of politics, history, psychology, psychiatry, philosophy and the like may want to study what manner of humankind conjures up such inhuman, mindless, evil practices that emanated as segregation from Britain and Europe, culminating in the apartheid philosophy in countries at the southern tip of Africa. Surely, all these busts or statues must be centred at the universities all around the country.

While the renaming process is not a priority, it remains a necessity. When we have acceded to the demands of service delivery protests that affect only the poor, we will have to give due attention to it.