A South African town is divided over changing its name from the colonial-era Graaff-Reinet to Robert Sobukwe, after the anti-apartheid activist, in a debate that has inflamed racial tensions.<\/p>\n
Petitions have been signed, rival marches held and a formal letter of complaint sent to the sports, arts and culture minister, Gayton McKenzie, who approved<\/a> the name change on 6 February.<\/p>\n A car in the town displays a poster of the Hands Off Graaff-Reinet group. Photograph: Marco Longari\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n On one side are people who feel a deep attachment to Graaff-Reinet, many regardless of the fact it was named after<\/a> Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff, the Dutch governor of the Cape Colony when the town was founded in 1786, and his wife, Hester Cornelia Reynet.<\/p>\n On the other are those who insist that renaming the town after Sobukwe, who was born and buried there, is a necessary part of the \u201ctransformation\u201d of South Africa<\/a> away from colonialism and white-minority apartheid rule.<\/p>\n The old train station in the town, whose centre is filled with elegant, white-washed Cape Dutch buildings. Photograph: Marco Longari\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Sobukwe left the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement to found the Pan Africanist Congress in 1959, amid disagreements about the ANC allowing white members. On 21 March 1960, Sobukwe led protests against laws requiring Black people to carry pass books. Police opened fire on a march, killing 69 people in what became known as the Sharpeville massacre<\/a>.<\/p>\n Between 2000 and 2024, more than 1,500 placenames were changed in South Africa, according to an official database<\/a>. They include more than 400 post offices, 144 rivers and seven airports, while the city of Port Elizabeth became Gqeberha in 2021.<\/p>\n The department of sports, arts and culture said in a statement<\/a> announcing 21 name changes, including Graaff-Reinet: \u201cThe mission \u2026 [is] to redress, correct and transform the geographical naming system in order to advance restorative justice, including addressing the colonial and apartheid-era naming legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n Map locating Graaff-Reinet<\/a><\/p>\n A survey<\/a> carried out in December 2023 found 83.6% of the town\u2019s residents opposed the name change, including 92.9% of Coloured people and 98.5% of white people. A third of Black residents backed the name change. Of the 367 randomly selected representative respondents, 54% were Coloured, 27.2% Black and 18.8% white.<\/p>\n \u201cMany residents felt that changing the name would erase part of their identity as \u2018Graaff-Reinetters\u2019,\u201d the Stellenbosch University geography professor Ronnie Donaldson wrote<\/a> of his findings.<\/p>\n Laughton Hoffman said the name Graaff-Reinet had become \u2018a benefit for the people and economy of the town\u2019. Photograph: Rachel Savage\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Laughton Hoffman, who runs a non-profit supporting young people, expressed concern about the name change harming tourism in the town, which has a population of about 51,000 and whose centre is filled with elegant, whitewashed Cape Dutch buildings.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not emotional about the Dutch \u2026 Out of the grief of the past [the name Graaff-Reinet] became a benefit for the people and for the economy of the town,\u201d said Hoffman, sporting a bright pink \u201cHands Off Graaff-Reinet\u201d T-shirt.<\/p>\n Hoffman is Coloured and Khoi-San<\/a> \u2013 indigenous South Africans who the apartheid government lumped together as Coloured with mixed-race people and the descendants of enslaved people from other parts of Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia.<\/p>\n Hoffman said his community had been \u201coppressed\u201d since the end of apartheid by governments led by the black-dominated ANC. \u201cWe have been marginalised for 32 years as a cultural group,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A covered-up statue of Robert Sobukwe, outside the closed Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Museum in the town. Photograph: Rachel Savage\/The Guardian<\/p>\n