Posted by Sapho Mahilihili*
Port Elizabeth was renamed Gqeberha.
This thing of changing names is pure stupidity, especially where it is applied to cities. It promotes laziness.
Look at it this way.
Our government has not built a single city, yet it has renamed many cities. Cities around the world are named after the people who founded them.
If the government could build a new city, and name it after the president, I would welcome that. This would instill a culture of building things from the ground up. The same applies to airports and universities. I welcomed the building and naming of King Shaka International Airport, and Sol Plaatjie University—built from scratch instead of renaming the old.
Let us build from the ground up, instead of hijacking things that are already built. This will create employment and contestation between presidents and their administrations, as to who built more and created more employment than the other. Instead of this silly idea, contesting who renames the most, while it creates no employment of the citizen.
Transformation of words and names is pure nonsense—places previously reserved and written Whites Only. Today they are written Management Only or Staff Only, and people think we are making strides. Go to that Gbeberha. Whites are still living in opulence, while Blacks are languishing in the same townships as before.
We need to build cities, especially along the coast, to tap in to the marine industry. Name those cities after people we love, instead of renaming cities whose old structural format remains intact, where Black people are pacified to believe that they made progress where there is none.
This is a regressive transformation, created out of hatred and spite towards White people, not to promote and elevate African people’s standard of living to those of White counterparts.
*Sapho Mahilihili is a well-known South African grassroots leader,
a #FeesMustFall and #Decolonization activist.
Editors' note: Twitter has suspended #Decolonization. One may refer to
#DecolonizeAcademia and other hashtags.
