Just+commend+without+blaming,+Gunnett+Kaaf,+Letters,+B+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, Letters, 06 September 2006
=Just commend without blaming!=

Karima Brown’s column is spot-on in motivating why the renaming of the Johannesburg Airport should be welcome and celebrated, Landing with gratitude at OR Tambo International (September 5).

The way she sketches the invaluable role Tambo played in building the African National Congress (ANC), and the democratic SA, in the 30 years during which the party was banned is particularly splendid. More so coming from a journalist. If this was from a government or ANC spokesman, it would have been dismissed as a mere exercise of self-fulfilling propaganda.

The constitution of the republic enjoins us to honour those who fought for freedom. Tambo is one of those who gave us our humanity! Brown, however, spoils a good piece by blaming the ANC for the renaming of Sandton Square and the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s medical school to Nelson Mandela Square and the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, respectively.

I share in her concern that many of our struggle heroes are yet to be recognised in the renaming of important sites. These heroes are within, and outside of, the ANC movement. The renaming exercise should be viewed as a national effort and not a party process.

Various stakeholders, communities and institutions have a great role to play. For instance, the ANC can only be said to be responsible for the renaming of government sites, not private sites such as upmarket malls and schools in universities.

Instead of blaming the ANC, let us all play our roles by, among other efforts, making comprehensive and convincing proposals. Gunnett Kaaf** Bloemfontein


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A266550**

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