Joburg’s sensible place names

Johannesburg’s new place naming policy is worthy of praise. I’ve never seen the sense in removing names of people, only to replace them with names of other people. True, some names are less offensive than others, in a historical context, but the exercise always struck me as both a whitewashing (if you’ll excuse the pun) of history, and a glorification of present-day political figures.

The classic example is Jan Smuts International Airport, renamed Johannesburg International Airport, before it became O.R. Tambo International Airport. The middle option struck everyone I know as the most appropriate and clear, no matter how they feel towards either Oliver Tambo or General Smuts. Silliness.

According to the city’s website:

Proposed names should be under themes, like flora and fauna. Only in exceptional cases should people’s names be used, and submissions or petitions to name something after a person must be motivated, indicating why that specific person is worthy of the honour.

Granted, naming streets after flora and fauna is boring. I can’t count the number of friends who live in trees, or next to animals. But kudos to the City of Joburg for being sensible about what really is little more than a PR exercise, and not using it as an excuse for political point-scoring. There’s plenty enough to do about infrastructure and other municipal problems without indulging in costly cosmetics and petty grandstanding.