What’s in a name?
90 new street signs after 4 000 suggestions from the public
GUGULETHU residents want the offensive Native Yard (NY) street names changed in honour of heroes of the nation, including Albert Luthuli, Miriam Makeba, Amy Biehl and Zapiro.
The city initiated the renaming of the apartheid-era NY street names after renaming NY 1 to Steve Biko Drive last year.
NY 147 will be named after US volunteer Biehl, who was slain on August 25, 2003, on Gugulethu’s main road, then the NY 1.
And in a show of unity in the overwhelmingly Xhosaspeaking suburb, NY 120 is to be renamed Shaka Street “in honour of the titanic (leader) of the Zulus and also in support of the principle of nontribalism”, said Shado Twala, chairwoman of a panel of experts appointed by the city.
Twala presented 90 new street names at a briefing to the city’s naming committee. The names were garnered from more than 4 000 suggestions from the public.
The 90 names will be referred back to the public for confirmation before adoption by the council next month.
Some of the NY replacement street names include freedom fighters from the ANC, UDF, PAC, acclaimed musicians, poets and Gugulethu business people.
Ray Alexander, trade union stalwart and founding member of the Federation of SA Women, will have a street renamed after her.
Crusading human rights activist and doctor Frances Ames will be honoured with NY 111 renamed after her.
N12 will be renamed Buyelwa Tshandu Street, after the first woman to register a business in Gugulethu, the Nomonde Butchery.
One of the latest surprise suggestions from the panel was to rename NY 106 as Zapiro Lane, after internationally acclaimed social commentator and cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro.
The panel unanimously recommended the nomination because of Shapiro’s contribution as “a noted cartoonist who has been internationally recog- nised in terms of his promotion of press freedom and social commentary”.
Shapiro told the Cape Times yesterday having the street named after him would be an “incredible honour”.
“I am very grateful to whoever put me forward. Not that I need to see my name on a sign – and I just love the fact that there are people out there who in this time of bitter politics are acknowledging that many of us media people are doing what we do out of a sense of conviction.”
He said the nomination was a “heck a surprise”: “I hope that in the event of my name being adopted, that the people of the area would be happy about it.
“I would never want to see the people who live in an area get a name that they don’t fully support.”
Several PAC activists will also be honoured, with NY 28 to be renamed Albert Shweni Street after the PAC activist executed in 1967, and NY 48 after the prominent PAC liberation figure Christopher Mlokoti.
NY 151 will be renamed Enoch Sontonga Street to honour the composer of what was to become the liberation movement’s, and now the country’s, national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.
The late Grammy Awardwinning singer and social activist, Miriam Makeba, will be honoured with NY 154 renamed after her.
Ruth Hayman, one of the first women in South Africa to qualify as an attorney, and who through the Black Sash Advice Centre defended anti-apartheid activists, will be honoured by having NY 24 named after her.
The naming committee also resolved to begin the public participation process to rename Vanguard Drive after the late Professor Jakes Gerwel.
The suggestion came from the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
A public participation process will also start in the coming weeks to rename all the footbridges across Nelson Mandela Boulevard, while the council will vote on the renaming of Heerengracht to Coen Steytler Circle later this month.