Not Google, but Government Mapped

It has long been a policy of the South African Government to uplift those South Africans, who were “previously disadvantaged”. During the Apartheid years, blacks, coloureds and Asians received little and bad education; insufficient healthcare; were excluded from certain profession, starting businesses and owning property. To make up for these injustices, the post-Apartheid Government introduced a number of policies to give these groups economic and social opportunities that were previously not available to them. Nowadays, Government not only provides basic housing, electricity, education and health care free of charge to all who need it, but also introduced policies to “resolve economic disparities created by Apartheid policies” (which essentially means that black businesses receive favourable treatment over white businesses).

In their mission to uplift black South Africans and erase any traces of Apartheid, Government has also long pushed to rename cities and give them African rather than English names: Warmbaths became Bela Bela, Pietersburg Polokwane and Durban is now called eThekwini. 

Unfortunately as maps are only updated very slowly, locals and travellers are left confused about how they managed to miss Witbank (as indicated on the map) and end up in eMalahleni (as written on the road signs). The biggest result of the renaming policy has therefore so far been confusion among road users and increased profits for petrol companies as people get completely lost looking for towns that no longer exist.

But apparently renaming cities was not enough to rebalance history and so Government decided to rename streets as well in order to “ensure that there was racial harmony and cohesion in the city”.

As a result, a couple of weeks ago, many roads in Pretoria suddenly had two street signs – a crossed-through old one and a new shiny one announcing the new name. Names were chosen to reflect black South African history and so Hans Strijdom Street became Soloman Mahlangu, Queen Wilhelmina Avenue turned into Florence Robeiro, and Proes Street is now called Johannes Ramokhoase Street.

I am sure that many black South Africans welcome this change; but so far I have not met many white people who are overly enthusiastic about it. This is not because white people object to renaming streets per se. No, it is because Government has chosen to replace the names of all major roads regardless of who or what they were named after. 

No one has any objections if the names of Apartheid Generals are replaced by Freedom Fighters. But if Government is trying to reflect the history of all of South Africans better in the public domain, then this should not mean that all white South African history is wiped out.

For example, some streets are named after the (admittedly colonial) founders of Pretoria, who built the city long before Apartheid started. Changing the name has little to do with removing traces of Apartheid and more with eliminating everything white in the history of South Africa. 

And this is making white South Africans, who have lived here for over 350 years, rather unwelcome in their own country. 

Understandably so, if you ask me.