Grahamstown is not a boring town according to the national tedium meter. It can be criticised for a whole assortment of reasons – and this newspaper often takes on the responsibility of doing the criticising – but this town is not dreary. In fact, we can safely say that compared to other urban centres in this country, Grahamstown packs more pounds of passion punch than any other place.
Grahamstown is not a boring town according to the national tedium meter. It can be criticised for a whole assortment of reasons – and this newspaper often takes on the responsibility of doing the criticising – but this town is not dreary. In fact, we can safely say that compared to other urban centres in this country, Grahamstown packs more pounds of passion punch than any other place.
Before you start scratching around for the usual gripes about the lack of an ice-rink or a horse racing track, just try to name any other town that has a regular tide of students entering and leaving, a series of high quality concerts, a National Arts Festival, art exhibitions, Scifest and an array of shows such as Grahamstown has. The only other way to get into our league of variety in South Africa is if you go Metro.
This is an interesting town.
It is therefore noteworthy that the Makana Municipality has launched a campaign to observe the 200 years since the city of Grahamstown was proclaimed in 1812. Council has already approved funds for the initiative and held two exploratory meetings with a range of stakeholders about how best to proceed with the campaign.
Deciding how to observe this significant landmark is tricky though, because the residents of this town come from a critically divided past – so how can we seek unity if we have widely divergent perspectives? There is no quick answer to that question, but that doesn't mean that we should shy away from it. Difficult questions have the potential for provoking more fascinating answers.
Stakeholders at the meeting in City Hall believed that in order to find meaning in our past 200 years, we need to ensure that all members of our community feel a part of the project to reflect our past and imagine where we could be in the future.
If you have creative ideas of how we, the residents of Makana, can seize the moment to constructively learn from our past to build a better future, then feel free to share these ideas in the pages of this newspaper. We will be happy to publish your letters or forward them to Councillor Julia Wells, the co-ordinator for the bicentenary project.
