Rename roads honouring racists to reflect our rainbow nation

Keith Gottschalk

This is a plea to Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis: rename the streets honouring the three highest-profile racist prime ministers.

The people of Cape Town never chose these roads’ names – they were named by a “Pretoria Foreshore Board”.

Fifteen years ago the DA-majority Metro Council set up the Kadalie Commission to initiate the renaming of roads – but stopped implementing this soon after starting.

So soon after it came into national power in 1948, the Afrikaner nationalists set up from Pretoria a hand-picked “Foreshore Board” of Broederbonders with power to choose road names on the Foreshore.

Their three highest-profile examples:

• Hertzog Boulevard honours Nationalist leader JBM Hertzog, the father of the statutory colour bar imposed relentlessly through the 1920s. His 1929 election manifesto made much use of the k-word, already then regarded as vulgar. In 1936 Hertzog removed Africans from the common voters roll in the Cape Province.

• DF Malan Straat celebrates the father of apartheid. His 1948 election slogan was “die k***er op sy plek, die k**lie uit die land”. He implemented the 1949 Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Group Areas, Race Classification, and the Suppression of Communism Acts in 1950, which laid the foundations for four decades of legalised racism.
• Hans Strijdom Avenue honours the most racist prime minister to ever rule South Africa. His election slogan was “baasskap”. He made much use of the k-word, and removed coloured voters from the common voters roll in the Cape Province.

After the DA won control of the City of Cape Town, it set up the Kadalie Commission, headed by the feisty Rhoda Kadalie, which recommended a number of road name changes.

The City removed the name of the Nazi Oswald Pirow, and renamed that road after Christiaan Barnard, the heart surgeon.

In the northern suburbs, Hendrik Verwoerd Drive became Uys Krige Drive.

Later, Salazar Plein, named to honour the quasi-fascist dictator of Portugal, was renamed after Hamilton Naki, who worked in the animal unit of Groote Schuur Hospital’s cardiac research.

But the Cape Town Metro Council ignored its own Kadalie Commission on removing the names of the three racists Hertzog, Malan and Strijdom. It is now a quarter of a century overdue to stop honouring such names.

What names could replace them?

In the spirit of bipartisanship, here are three modest proposals:

• DF Malan Straat runs alongside Artscape. I propose that it be renamed after Johaar Mosaval (born 1928). Johaar was born in District Six, and could only make his famous career as a ballet dancer by emigrating to the UK.

• Hertzog Boulevard also runs past Artscape. I propose that it be renamed after David Poole (1925 – 1991). David Poole was a ballet dancer and choreographer who was born in District Six and made an outstanding career at Artscape.
• I propose that Hans Strijdom Avenue be renamed Goringhaiqua Avenue to remember the clan who were the original residents of the land that is today Cape Town.

These three renamings would also help ensure that the white monopoly over the iconography of our landscape is mitigated to better reflect our rainbow nation.

There are many other possible non-offensive names. The above is just one possible suggestion.

There are other street names which are also past their sell-by date. This proposal limits itself to an absolute minimum, the three highest-profile racists who are still honoured.

* Gottschalk is an Adjunct Professor of Political Studies at the University of the Western Cape.

Cape Times