/ 24 December 2007

Grahamstown: Court action ‘sooner rather than later’

Campaigners say they are eyeing legal action ”sooner rather than later” to block a bid to change Grahamstown’s name to iRhini.

”All such name changes have to be fully motivated and must reflect the views of the community,” one of the coordinators of the Keep Grahamstown Campaign, Jock McConnachie, said in a statement on Monday. ”This is being ignored despite the embarrassment the government suffered over Louis Trichardt.”

He said the same mistakes that led to the Supreme Court of Appeal’s overturning the change of the name Louis Trichardt to Machado earlier this year are being made in Grahamstown.

Grahamstown’s Makana municipality is ”slavishly” following an instruction by the provincial geographic place-names committee to change the name.

”The Makana mayor, Phumelelo Kate, announced the change before consulting with the community on the issue, whereas law requires that any such decision must be preceded by public consultation. Like Machado, he has put the cart before the horse by pre-judging the issue.”

McConnachie said that on the evidence of the more than 5 000 registered supporters of the campaign, most of whom are black, the name Grahamstown is not regarded as offensive, as the mayor claims it is.

Though legislation allows names to be changed in the interests of transformation and for historical considerations, historical names such as Grahamstown are part of the nation’s heritage and should preferably be preserved, he said.

The municipality has a duty to represent fairly the interests and opinions of the community and to exercise its own discretion in the matter.

”It is not for the… committee to dictate to the municipality,” he said. ”The Keep Grahamstown Campaign will fight tooth and nail to see that the community’s opinion on the matter is respected.

”We take comfort from the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal, but unlike in the case of Louis Trichardt, we may take legal action sooner rather than later against the Makana municipality itself to pre-empt any decision on the basis of the irregularities which have already occurred.”

Moves to change the name were sparked by a claim by President Thabo Mbeki that the Eastern Cape town’s founder, Colonel John Graham, was a particularly brutal and vicious military ”butcher” who had starved the Xhosa people into submitting to colonial authority. — Sapa