In his State of the City Address on March 27, Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina said colonial powers imposed a certain value system upon society and buttressed it with a set of symbols that denoted who belonged within and outside that civilization.
This comment follows the process initiated by the metro to rename a number of streets throughout Ekurhuleni, including Boksburg.
“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,” said the mayor.
“This is more pronounced in polities with a complex and violent history of colonialism such as ours.”
He said the idea of a City such as Ekurhuleni is a historically contested idea.
“Colonial powers imposed a certain value system upon our society. This dynamic is articulated clearly by the names given to our streets, settlements and buildings across the city.
“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 interface with in their everyday lives.”
He said 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.
“Similarly, 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.
“Central to that project is 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.”
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