/ 1 May 2007

Name-change protest disrupts Durban

Shoppers fled and shop owners hurriedly lowered their shutters as thousands of stick- and knobkerrie-wielding protesters ran through Durban's city centre on Tuesday to the city hall to object to plans to rename streets after African National Congress (ANC) heroes. Minor damage was reported but no injuries.

Shoppers fled and shop owners hurriedly lowered their shutters as thousands of stick- and knobkerrie-wielding protesters ran through Durban’s city centre on Tuesday to the city hall to object to plans to rename streets after African National Congress (ANC) heroes.

While police frantically moved traffic out of their way, the protesters ran down the five-lane Broad street to Albert Park, upending dustbins. Minor damage was reported but no injuries.

At the park, they joined another 5 000 to 6 000 mainly Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) members protesting against the renaming of places — mostly street names — by the eThekwini municipality’s African National Congress-dominated council.

They then ran through the city centre, down West Street, to the city hall. One protester fired shots into the air, sending other marchers ducking for cover.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that police arrested two people after shops were looted at the corner of Grey and Commercial streets.

By early afternoon, about 10 000 protesters had converged at the city hall where the IFP and Democratic Party (DA) held a joint protest, which was addressed by IFP national organiser Albert Mncwango.

”Stop naming our streets after your girlfriends!” read one poster. ”We all have our heroes,” said another.

In a move that has incensed IFP supporters, the eThekwini council plans to rename the Mangosuthu Highway after ANC leader Griffiths Mxenge, a lawyer killed in the 1980s. It also plans to rename the city hall Madiba Hall after former president Nelson Mandela and Broad Street after former South African Communist Party chairperson Dr Yusuf Dadoo.

The city advertised the proposed name changes last week, sparking anger at the dominance of ANC-favoured names and even names of unknown people. ”Who are these people?” asked a protester’s placard on Tuesday.

Memorandum

The protesters planned to hand a memorandum of their grievances to eThekwini mayor Obed Mlaba at the city hall. Mlaba did not appear, so the memorandum was handed to a senior police officer, Director Aaron Harry, instead.

The IFP’s memorandum urged the municipality ”to resort to renaming only in exceptional instances in the interests of national reconciliation and healing” and accused the ANC of diverting attention from ”the real task of transformation”.

It demanded instead that the city focus on ”initiatives that will bring tangible developments to the poorest communities”.

The IFP questioned the choice of names such as Cuban leader Fidel Castro and South American revolutionary Che Guevara, their contributions to KwaZulu-Natal and ”the lack of their democratic credentials”.

It said the municipality ”should show respect to the taxpayer” when contemplating ”costly and often controversial projects such as renaming of buildings and places”.

Barricade

Earlier on Tuesday, name-change protesters barricaded the Mangosuthu Highway with dustbins and burning tyres in Umlazi, south of Durban. The barricade protest, which started at about 2am, was cleared by mid-morning. Traffic lights in the area were smashed.

In his weekly internet letter, IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi reportedly said he knew the removal of his name did not diminish his status or contribution to the country’s liberation struggle.

However, he feared that a new name for the Mangosuthu Highway could ”reopen the many old wounds in KwaZulu-Natal, which we have striven to heal for many years”.

Buthelezi warned the ANC against honouring only its own liberation fighters in its renaming drive.

”It seems to me that freedom fighters who did not hail from the same stable as the ruling party are being given scant consideration. This is short-sighted and in the long run, counterproductive,” he said. Renaming cannot be conducted ”in a manner befitting Mao’s Cultural Revolution, in which names and events that do not fit into the ruling party’s liberation narrative are disdainfully ejected”. — Sapa