“Sign to be removed,” says owner
SOPHIATOWN – While service station name ‘Triomf’ upsets residents, they will have to wait for it to be removed.
Owner of the service station at Edward Road in Sophiatown says that residents can rest assured that its signage will not say ‘Triomf’ for very long.
After a letter to NMT alerted us to the re-branding of a petrol station in Sophiatown (see week ending 10 January, Controversy over ‘Triomf’ sign) we investigated to find out if the use of the painful name was a slap in the face to the heritage of the suburb or not.
Sophiatown was one of the few multiracial and multicultural suburbs in the Johannesburg area until the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950 and the Natives Resettlement Act of 1954 paved the way for forced removals and the flattening of most of what once stood. It was rebuilt as a white suburb to match neighbouring Westdene and Newlands with the Afrikaans name Triomf.
In 2006, the Johannesburg City Council reverted the name to Sophiatown.
Johan Marco, owner of the service station explained the end of a contract meant that Engen removed all their branding and the sign in question, painted into 2011, came into plain view.
“Triomf is purely a business name that has been registered and trading for over ten years now. It has nothing to do with racism and I am in the process of changing the sign, but my registered name will stay the same because who will pay for all the time and money?”
“We were forced to renovate but we are willing to take it off because we know the history and we are proudly South African,” replied Marco when asked if he understood the feelings that seeing a sign like that might bring up.
Marco said they were also visited by a man purporting to be from ANC inquiring about the sign.
