Goodbye Graaff-Reinet: South African town’s name change stirs racial tensions

## Summary
Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A survey in December 2023 found that over 80% of the town’s residents opposed the name change. Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images Goodbye Graaff-Reinet: South African town’s name change stirs racial tensions Minister’s decision to ditch town’s colonial-era identity and honour anti-apartheid activist divides residents 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. The department of sports, arts and culture said in a statement announcing 21 name changes, including Graaff-Reinet: “The mission … [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.” Map locating Graaff-Reinet A survey carried out in December 2023 found 83.6% of the town’s residents opposed the name change, including 92.9% of Coloured people and 98.5% of white people. View image in fullscreen Laughton Hoffman said the name Graaff-Reinet had become ‘a benefit for the people and economy of the town’.

## Article Content
A survey in December 2023 found that over 80% of the town’s residents opposed the name change.
Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
View image in fullscreen
A survey in December 2023 found that over 80% of the town’s residents opposed the name change.
Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
Goodbye Graaff-Reinet: South African town’s name change stirs racial tensions
Minister’s decision to ditch town’s colonial-era identity and honour anti-apartheid activist divides residents
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.
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
the name change on 6 February.
View image in fullscreen
A car in the town displays a poster of the Hands Off Graaff-Reinet group.
Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
On one side are people who feel a deep attachment to Graaff-Reinet, many regardless of the fact it was
named after
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.
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 “transformation” of South
Africa
away from colonialism and white-minority apartheid rule.
View image in fullscreen
The old train station in the town, whose centre is filled with elegant, white-washed Cape Dutch buildings.
Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
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
.
Between 2000 and 2024, more than 1,500 placenames were changed in South Africa, according to an
official database
. They include more than 400 post offices, 144 rivers and seven airports, while the city of Port Elizabeth became Gqeberha in 2021.
The department of sports, arts and culture said in a
statement
announcing 21 name changes, including Graaff-Reinet: “The mission … [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.”
Map locating Graaff-Reinet
A
survey
carried out in December 2023 found 83.6% of the town’s 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.
“Many residents felt that changing the name would erase part of their identity as ‘Graaff-Reinetters’,” the Stellenbosch University geography professor Ronnie Donaldson
wrote
of his findings.
View image in fullscreen
Laughton Hoffman said the name Graaff-Reinet had become ‘a benefit for the people and economy of the town’.
Photograph: Rachel Savage/The Guardian
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.
“We are not emotional about the Dutch … Out of the grief of the past [the name Graaff-Reinet] became a benefit for the people and for the economy of the town,” said Hoffman, sporting a bright pink “Hands Off Graaff-Reinet” T-shirt.
Hoffman is Coloured and
Khoi-San
– 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.
Hoffman said his community had been “oppressed” since the end of apartheid by governments led by the black-dominated ANC. “We have been marginalised for 32 years as a cultural group,” he said.
View image in fullscreen
A covered-up statue of Robert Sobukwe, outside the closed Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Museum in the town.
Photograph: Rachel Savage/The Guardian
Coloured researchers
attribute much of this resentment
felt by parts of their community to animosity between Coloured and Black communities fostered by apartheid. Coloured people were allowed slightly better houses and jobs, forcing them to distance themselves from Black people to access those benefits.
View image in fullscreen
Robert Sobukwe.
Photograph: Photo 12/Universal Images Group/ Getty Images
Meanwhile, Derek Light, a lawyer who wrote the complaint letter demanding that the culture minister McKenzie reverse his decision, argued that the public consultation on the name change did not follow legal procedure. “It was a f

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- View image in fullscreen Laughton Hoffman said the name Graaff-Reinet had become ‘a benefit for the people and economy of the town’.
- Photograph: Rachel Savage/The Guardian 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. “We are not emotional about the Dutch … Out of the grief of the past [the name Graaff-Reinet] became a benefit for the people and for the economy of the town,” said Hoffman, sporting a bright pink “Hands Off Graaff-Reinet” T-shirt.

### Areas for Consideration
- Photograph: Rachel Savage/The Guardian 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. “We are not emotional about the Dutch … Out of the grief of the past [the name Graaff-Reinet] became a benefit for the people and for the economy of the town,” said Hoffman, sporting a bright pink “Hands Off Graaff-Reinet” T-shirt.

### Implications
- A survey in December 2023 found that over 80% of the town’s residents opposed the name change.
- Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A survey in December 2023 found that over 80% of the town’s residents opposed the name change.
- Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images Goodbye Graaff-Reinet: South African town’s name change stirs racial tensions Minister’s decision to ditch town’s colonial-era identity and honour anti-apartheid activist divides residents 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.
- 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 the name change on 6 February.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers name, sobukwe, town topics. Notable strengths include discussion of name. Areas of concern are also raised. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1081.