By Anita Dangazele
The DA in the Eastern Cape held a march on Tuesday in Graaff-Reinet against plans to rename the historic town and others in the Karoo.
In August 2023, residents were upset when they discovered that Graaff-Reinet, Aberdeen, Adendorp, and Nieu-Bethesda could be renamed.
The suggested new names are Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe or Fred Hufkie for Graaff-Reinet, Kwa Mseki Bishop Limba for Adendorp, Camdeboo for Aberdeen, and Kwa Noheleni for Nieu-Bethesda.
Public meetings were held, and a petition with 8,000 signatures against the changes was submitted.
Gayton McKenzie, the new Minister of Sports, Arts, and Culture, has already said the towns won’t be renamed.
However, Christian Martin, chair of the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee, said the changes could still happen.
The DA said it would fight hard to stop the changes, arguing that the names have important historical significance and should be kept.
DA MP and Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy Samantha Graham-Maré addressed the crowd, saying the new names don’t reflect the towns’ history or people.
“There were a number of issues around the fact that the majority of people in those public hearings were not in favour of the name changes … there was an overwhelming response from the people locally not to change the names,” she said.
“His [Kwa Mseki Bishop Limba’s] claim to [Adendorp] is ‘nothing’ because he once worked as a porter at the Camdeboo centre many years ago,” Graham-Maré said.
“In Nieu-Bethesda, they wanted to change the town to a Xhosa name, yet nobody speaks Xhosa in the town,” she added.
Only the Pan Africanist Congress supported renaming Graaff-Reinet because Sobukwe was born there.
In Adendorp, the Bantu Church of Christ brought in supporters from Gqeberha to support the name change to that of the church’s founding bishop.
The DA is now working to ensure the name change process is fair and democratic.
Pictured above: DA MP and Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy, Samantha Graham-Maré, addresses Tuesday’s Heritage Day event in Graaff-Reinet.
Source: Supplied
