Port Elizabeth, airport name change meetings draw to a close

It was as though the renaming of Port Elizabeth International airport was the only item on the agenda at the penultimate round of public participation meetings into proposed name changes for the airport and Port Elizabeth in Nelson Mandela Bay on Wednesday evening.

Lobbyists, who packed the Chatty community centre, called for the airport to be renamed after Khoi chief and political activist, chief David Stuurman.

Only one speaker proposed that Port Elizabeth should be renamed Nelson Mandela City while another participant called the entire process a waste of money.

The new name waiting in the wings for the airport though is what dominated proceedings.

Zukile Jodwana, deputy-chairperson of the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee (ECPGNC), said there were three proposed names being considered for Port Elizabeth, while there were six possible names for the airport.

If everything went according to plan, Port Elizabeth could be called Gqebera, iBhayi or Nelson Mandela City by as early as June 2019, Jodwana said.

The proposed names for Port Elizabeth International Airport include Nelson Mandela Bay Airport, Nelson Mandela Airport, Raymond Mhlaba Airport, Sipho Hashe International Airport, David Stuurman International Airport and The Khoi-San International Airport.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Khoi and San activists caused a stir when they held up a “Dawid Stuurman International Airport” banner behind one of the speakers.

Jodwana deplored the branding of the proposed name.

“The reason why we have asked you not to do these things is because this is a very sensitive process and people tend to look for loopholes, not on what was said but on something that seemed to be out of tune,” Jodwana said.

“They’d lodge an objection to say the decision was informed by what you have done, that it was pre-determined. So I am warning you should that happen, we are about to be taken to court and this process will take years to be resolved.

“We don’t want that. Hence we have requested you not to distribute or show material that is not sanctioned by the committee, don’t brand anything that would seek to influence the outcome of this process.”

After the crowd settled, Khoi cultural chief Kai Anib said renaming the airport after David Stuurman would redress the imbalances of the past.

“I’m just here to remind the committee that their key functions is to redress the imbalances caused by lack of representativity in previous processes.

“Now, in this South Africa we are busy building social cohesion. It is important for us to understand what social cohesion is.

“Social cohesion, according to my understanding, is the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper,” he said.

“Willingness means it’s a choice that you want to work together. Now if you understand social cohesion in the context of many, many years ago, you can understand that chief David Stuurman and the rest of the Xhosa leaders that were residing in this area – they used to work together to one common goal.

“And if we want to redress the imbalances of the non-representation of our people, it is the right to do to name the airport chief David Stuurman International Airport,” Anib said to applause.

Khoisan activist Christian Martin said: “I think from my side I first want to say that the proposal of David Stuurman is what we as the Khoi and the San people want. We as Khoi and San people identify with David Stuurman. When we were at school they would ask us, ‘what is the name of the airport?’ And we would say, ‘Verwoerd’.

“And then we have to write about Verwoerd. Now when they ask our children what is the name of the airport, they’re going to say ‘chief David Stuurman’. And then they are going to ask who was this chief David Stuurman and then that’s when our culture and who we really are is going to come out.”

Another speaker, Leanne Bailey, objected to the renaming process, calling it a waste of money.

“This money could be put to good use. How can you just change a name like Port Elizabeth or the name of the airport to David Stuurman? That money could be put into crime [prevention].

“Crime is killing the youth, the youth is being killed there outside [and] there’s no development for youth. Now, how can we change names when those issues have not been addressed?”

The final public participation meeting is expected to take place at the Nangoza Jebe hall in New Brighton on Thursday evening.