Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille is faux pas prone. She appointed
coyly termed "poo protestor" – or more accurately, “shit-trooper”
(apologies to Star Wars) – Loyiso Nkohla as
an executive support officer to Ernest Sonnenberg at a R700 000 a year salary
to the amazement of citizens and her own party. Now, rightly so, the DA
wants to "flush him away” – reverse his appointment – because it was
improper, irrational and counter its principles.
She went to bat for Clifton millionaire
developers and supported
and approved their controversial plans, despite allegedly being personally acquainted with them, ignoring concerns of a conflict of interest.
Now, there is Western
Cape’s Premier Helen Zille’s and the DA’s proposal to rename the Green Point
Athletics Stadium after Olympic gold medallist Wayde van Niekerk. De
Lille was interviewed on SABC TV news October 17 and said: "There will be
public participation, and next February the stadium [will] be renamed after
Wayde van Niekerk".
According
to Sport24 De Lille said: “It needs public
participation to ensure the proposal is accepted. Thereafter, the naming
committee will make a recommendation to me, based on the outcome of the public
participation process. If the majority
of councillors are in agreement, they will vote to pass the renaming.”
However, her short statement to SABC and the way they
reported it and Van Niekerk’s response indicate it’s fait accompli. From SABC’s live blog:
SABC Sport anchor: “And the news [Van Niekerk] was
to have a stadium named after him”:
Van Niekerk’s response: “It was a massive honour
... to have the opportunity to get this stadium named after me, I thank
everyone.”
De Lille and the city have prejudiced the public
participation process that has not yet begun. I don’t believe SABC and
Van Niekerk misunderstood that renaming the stadium is subject to citizens deliberating
and deciding first – they reported and he accepted it as if it was decided fact. De Lille and DA have already decided,
irrespective of what the majority view of the city's residents might be. The
news comes a month after Zille made the proposal, and was announced at the same
time as a city event honouring Rio Olympics athletes.
There was a similar situation last year with UCT's
pro forma public participation process over the Rhodes statue, a pointless and
dishonest exercise because both UCT and Heritage Western Cape had pre-emptively
decided the outcome and UCT had already been given permission to move the
statue. (The eventual
decision was to move the statue elsewhere on campus, but it remains in storage.)
Van Niekerk (24) may be
an admirable athlete and person, and I wish him well. But it's inappropriate to name a facility,
etc after, or bestow a similar honour on, one who is at the start of and who
has yet to prove himself over the course of a hopefully long and successful
career.
Because we have so few heroes and role models, in
SA there is a tendency to get excited and prematurely idolise the few who do
shine, even if briefly, only to be disappointed or neglect them or their memory
when either they do not live up to expectations or disappoint. Then, the public turns against them with a
vengeance – the highs when our teams do well that turns into anger and derision
when they fail, e.g., the vicissitudes of the national rugby, football
and cricket teams, and fallen sporting legends.
Generally, public honours and awards are made
after years or a lifetime’s hard work and achievement. If it’s done at all, it’s done then to ensure
the proposed recipient is worthy and showed consistency and commitment to his work,
and reward him or her for that dedication to excellence. Or it’s done to honour an extraordinary or once-in-a-lifetime
feat. Importantly, the honour is a
reflection on the person, and will
not be made if there is a blemish on his or her character, personal life or career[1].
Without detracting from Van Niekerk’s Olympics
win, which other South African athletes also achieved, we don’t know what the
future holds for him personally and professionally.
The Olympics 2016 was the first he participated
in. His career started in 2011, but he fully emerged in 2013. Since then he has shown promise. He won gold at the World Championships in
Beijing 2015, silver at Commonwealth Games in 2014, and two gold medals and
silver at the African Games in 2016 and 2014 respectively. His career is only starting.
We know the DA-run city does not, and will not, abide
any outcome that does not align with its own political or private agendas and
views. We see this with development
proposals and the business plan option for the Cape Town Stadium it pushed
through despite public opposition.
Similarly, there is a lack of transparency with
renaming roads regarding how and what names were proposed and the process used
to decide the names that were eventually chosen. In 2012 the late Dullah Omar’s family
objected to the city’s proposal to rename
Vanguard Drive “Dullah Omar Drive”. They wanted Jan Smuts Drive to be renamed
after him. Part of Lansdowne Road was
renamed “Imam Haron” despite, I understand, substantial objections to that
too.
Despite meaningful public participation being a
requirement of the constitution and Municipal Systems Act, the city is under no
obligation to adhere to public consensus.
I don’t understand its purpose then.
Ultimately, the city’s decision – we may accept
it as fait accompli – to rename the Green Point stadium is an opportunistic,
political move intended to ingratiate the DA – not city – with Van Niekerk, the
athletics loving public and community and Cape Town’s brown population. Of course, it would be churlish of Van
Niekerk to reject the proposal – he said he was honoured, which as a gentleman
and sportsman he would graciously say. His public position is understandable.
Because the public participation process has not
begun, I don’t know what the people of Cape Town will say. It would be untenable for De Lille, Zille, DA
and city council if residents reject the proposal, object to it or suggest other
names, if the latter were posed as an option they might consider (it won’t). It would be huge humiliation for the DA et al, and especially Van Niekerk, if
the proposal was rejected. So De Lille
and city can’t let this happen.
So the process to rename the stadium the “Wayde
van Niekerk Athletics Stadium” will be stage managed like the questionable and
discredited public participation processes for Rhodes statue (that was not the
city’s, but UCT’s), Cape Town Stadium’s business plan and various ongoing, city-wide
developments.
Zille and De Lille are particularly self-serving,
capricious and arrogant politicians motivated by attention-seeking and personal
glory. In other circumstances, naming a public
facility after a living person is singularly praiseworthy for the grantor and a
significant honour for the beneficiary. It’s
almost unheard of to name it after one so young and relatively untested in his
occupation as Van Niekerk is. But coming
from a questionable political space and source, there is nothing commendable
about this case. The DA and city have placed
a great burden, and honour, on Van Niekerk.
I hope he lives up to it.
[1] Endnote: Strathclyde University, Scotland
awarded Olympian Oscar Pistorius, then 25, an honorary
doctorate in 2012 for “outstanding sporting success”. The university
stripped him of the degree four months after he was jailed for killing
Reeva Steenkamp.
Comments
Post a Comment