Name trouble brewing in Potch

About 30km outside Potchefstroom visitors are greeted by the sign, in Afrikaans: ‘Potchefstroom not Tswana beer” — a reference to the town’s popular home-grown beer, Tlokwe.

The sign has irritated Potchefstroom mayor Maphetle Maphetle and, in the Potchefstroom community, the association with Tlokwe has resonated. Students joke about living in a brewery, while people in Ikageng scoff at the link.

‘It is a drunk name,” says domestic worker Sina Kelakweng, an Ikageng resident. ‘People want us to like the name, but I like Potchefstroom. Some of my neighbours believe it has to change and people tell us why it should become Tlokwe, but to me it will make us a bunch of drunkards.”

Kelakweng is busy burning her rubbish, a common practice in Ikageng. Driving through the area, gardens are covered in waste rather than blooming flowers. Burned refuse is found on every corner.

‘They do not come to collect our waste,” says Sam Mokobane, a local organiser of the South African Non-Governmental Organisation Coalition. ‘People are aching for proper sanitation instead of pit toilets. The council says they want to restore our dignity with the name change, but people will have dignity only if they can sit on a proper toilet.”

Mokobane is not opposed to the name change, but believes the council has its priorities wrong. Other residents of Ikageng echo his feelings.

‘We like Tlokwe, but we are more worried about toilets than names,” say residents. Others, including ANC volunteers, are unhappy with promises made before the election.

Like Wolmaranstad and Zeerust, Potchefstroom has had its share of service delivery protests. Mokobane has been arrested for public violence and interrogated by the crime intelligence division.

He points out the lack of street names in Ikageng.

‘The ‘venom-spitting’ Kaiser Mohau [Potchefstroom’s city council spokesperson] says emergency services cannot find houses, because the signs are stolen,” says Mokobane. ‘But what about Ikageng? People have to go out at night to direct ambulances to their homes, because for years there have been no street names in many parts here.”

Mohau’s office in the Potchefstroom council building is decorated with Tlokwe’s new corporate identity. He admits that service delivery is not perfect, but says that the council is improving all the time. ‘But some former ANC councillors who have been kicked out for good reason are using the people to make a political point,” he says.

Mohau explains why it is important for the name to change. ‘This is about transformation, transforming this town into a place where everyone can feel at home.” He believes that the majority of the town’s 250 000 people support the name change.

‘We have a petition with 70 000 names on it,” he says. ‘Only a minority of people are opposed to the name. We purposefully did not change the magistrates’ building’s name from Louis le Grange, because it is a reflection of the past. The same goes for comrade Peter Mokaba. Our intention is not to avenge the past. Bad or good, history is important.”

Some of the new street name poles were stolen or vandalised as soon as they were erected. Mohau has sent scathing statements about ‘racial anarchists”. He says the council has budgeted R235 000 for the name change, but erecting and cleaning the vandalised signs will cost the Potchefstroom taxpayers R26 000.

Peter Mokaba Street seems to have suffered the most. Graffiti artists have been hard at work with cans of black spray paint. Three university women students were arrested after someone saw a street name pole sticking out of the boot of their car. But students on campus dismiss the theft and vandalism as the work of immature pranksters.

‘Students have been stealing signs way before the name changes. They have stolen the name of Bourbons [a popular student nightspot] and they have stolen other street names,” says student Adri Breed. ‘But now that they have stolen the changed names, they are arrested.”

Many students did not know who Peter Mokaba was, but they compared the change of Tom Street to Steve Biko with Paris losing the Eiffel Tower.

Older Afrikaners in Potch regard the name change as a direct attack on their heritage. Proppie Cilliers, the vice-chairperson of Action Potchefstroom — an organisation campaigning against the name changes — says his community has been left with no option but to fight back.

‘We do not deny that in the apartheid years the heroes of the blacks in town were ignored,” says Cilliers. ‘But now we get the idea that it is a case of ‘now that we are in control, we will show you Afrikaners.’”

Business people, such as developer Jannie van Schalkwyk, are worried they will have to carry the cost of name changes and believe it is ‘a form of taxation for the past”. He estimates the cost of the name changes to be as high as R300million.

Other Potchers speak about a growing polarisation in the community. Psychologist Pieter Joubert, who treats many of the North West’s white government workers, says: ‘Many of my patients have the perception that the new regime wants to give Afrikaners a spanking. The name changes only reinforce that paranoia.”

But opposition parties are not opposed to the street name changes.

‘We realised that some of the street names had to change, but we have a big problem with the minimal consultation about the changes. Why, for instance, was a local hero like Hezekiel Sepeng ignored?” asks DA councillor Bertus le Roux, in whose ward most of the changes have taken place.

The lack of consultation irks North West University vice-chancellor Theuns Eloff. ‘We signed a memorandum of understanding with the city council and, until the name changes, they consulted us on all the important decisions concerning the city. But when they announced the name [Tlokwe], they did not talk to us at all. And when we requested a meeting, they did not listen to us.”

In the short term Potchefstroom will not change to Tlokwe, but a court battle is looming over the proposed name change. Mohau says the city council’s name will soon change to Tlokwe. ‘We will continue our fight [for the name change]. Where one person might fall, another will take up his machine gun and struggle on,” he vows.