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'What about Pretoria-Tshwane?'
31/08/2007 14:36 - (SA)
Johannesburg - Compromise is the answer to the Pretoria-Tshwane name-change debate, the Freedom Front Plus said on Friday.
"The final name could possibly include both Pretoria and Tshwane," said FF Plus Tshwane Metro councillor Conrad Beyers.
"The way in which KwaZulu-Natal was given a combined name, and the way in which both 'Die Stem' and Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika were included in the National Anthem, should serve as examples on how a solution can be found for the Pretoria/Tshwane name issue," he said.
"Reconciliation does not mean that one group should lose everything."
"All South Africans' history should be respected and... one group's history should not be obliterated."
Nothing to do with apartheid
Beyers said the FF Plus believed the name Pretoria had nothing to do with apartheid.
"The city is more than 150 years old and got its name long before the implementation of apartheid."
"The ANC should leave its revenge politics behind," he said.
On Thursday, President Thabo Mbeki said Members of Parliament should work together on name change issues to more fairly reflect South African culture.
"In some instances these [unchanged] names give the impression that South Africa is an European outpost rather than a truly African country."
This week, Tshwane politicians have been embroiled in a war of words over a Pretoria High Court ruling that provisionally halted Tshwane metro council plans to replace the name Pretoria with Tshwane on road signs.
Road signs
At the beginning of August, the metro council confirmed it planned to replace "Pretoria" road signs with the words "Tshwane" or "City of Tshwane".
The Freedom Front Plus and AfriForum then went to court and were granted an urgent interim interdict against the removal of the signboards.
After the court ruling, Tshwane mayor Gwen Ramokgopa apparently called for the parties that dragged the council to court to resign from the council.
- SAPA
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