According to The Grahamstown Committee for Deciding What To Call This Place (GCDWTCTP), Grahamstown is on the verge of getting its new name.
According to The Grahamstown Committee for Deciding What To Call This Place (GCDWTCTP), Grahamstown is on the verge of getting its new name.
However, the decision has not been as clear-cut as many would at first believe, says head of the committee, Will Renaimit.
“There are many issues facing Grahamstown today such as the water problem, robbery, assault, rape and murder, but these are all subordinated to this new debate. After all, who can care about violent crime and extreme social issues – let alone do anything about it – when you can’t agree on where, exactly, it happened?” he told reporters this morning.
Renaimit went on to outline the several options that the committee members have been deliberating since the name-change issue first arose.
“At first we toyed with the idea of just naming it Nelsontown, or Mandelaville, or even Madibasfontein, but we quickly realised that might get our town confused with every street, road, stadium, shopping complex, bridge, highway, office block, university and town square in South Africa that uses that much-loved moniker,” Renaimit said.
This easy option out the window, the committee was forced to consider other alternatives.
“There’s a Welsh man on our committee and we know how fond they are of long, complicated names. He suggested that we just throw every option together, and please everyone,” he said.
However, after some trial runs and tests on official documents, maps and road signs, the committee decided against renaming the City of Saints ‘GrahamskanamakandhaeRhinijozingotownsbergsvillesfontein’.
Soon after this development, tensions were high.
“We were at our wits’ end,” said another committee member, Ray Consile.
“And then someone came up with a brilliant idea: if we choose one name above the rest, we’ll only make one group happy, and everyone else unhappy. So why don’t we just make everyone equally happy by making them all equally miserable with us?”
According to Consile, this move came straight out of a post-2000 ANC Ministerial behaviour guidebook.
So, after almost four years of debates, fights and angry letters, the decision has been made. “We’ll make the announcement early tomorrow morning,” said Consile.
“We just hope that everyone’s happy with the name 'ThetownthatusedtobecalledGrahamstown-town’.”
Matthew de Klerk is a fourth-year journalism and media studies student with a love for poetic license.
