It is undesirable, and indeed unjust, for the city’s landmarks to bear the names that speak to the histories of one section of the population.
These were the words of executive mayor Mzwandile Masina during his State of the City (SOCA) address in Germiston on March 27.
He was referring to the City of Ekurhuleni’s decision to rename several roads and buildings within the metro.
“The construction of a city is not just in the realm of the material. There are symbolic and spiritual values that underpin a sense of belonging and displacement within cities.
“The idea of a city such as ours is a historically contested idea. Colonial powers imposed a certain value system upon our society and buttressed it with a set of symbols that denoted who belonged within and outside that civilisation. This dynamic is articulated clearly by the names given to our streets, settlements and buildings across the city,” said Masina.
“We must build a city whose landmarks, highways, streets and intersections bear a resemblance of all the people who make up its population. The collective identity and moral image of the city must be drawn from within the histories of the whole population. The children of our city must grow up in an environment that bears names that are familiar to their home languages and of people they interact with in their everyday lives.
“We cannot dwell in a city whose landmarks bear names whose histories move counter to the democratic post-colonial society we are actively building in this country. We have therefore embarked on a process of renaming especially roads and streets within the city.”
He said central to this project was the desire to uproot the colonial histories embodied in the geographical naming of the city as a collective space with an inclusive, non-racial and democratic value proposition to future generations.
