LOUIS TRICHARDT – The continued name change obsession of the Makhado Municipality is causing a serious division in the local society and is plainly motivated by sheer racist spitefulness of a political clique within the governing party.

This is the consensus of opinion in a wave of protest letters and telephone calls received at the local newspaper's office from within the town of Louis Trichardt, and also from groupings from as far a field as Thohoyandou. The community feels itself besieged by a spiteful council, abusing its authority to deliberately violate and marginalize the culture of Afrikaans White people as well as other non-Venda and non-Black cultures.

The changing of street names and the purported change of the town's name is seen as a one sided exercise in which the main role players – the majority of the taxpayers of the town Louis Trichardt – are totally ignored. There has been no serious effort to gauge their feelings and opinion - on the contrary, observers say there are examples of an all out effort to keep them isolated from this decision making process.

The way in which Council conducted so-called "public hearings", is bringing the whole new ward system in disrepute. Angry taxpayers say that instead of affording each ward the democratic right and opportunity to indicate its preferences with regard to development and changes within that specific ward, Council is using the system to deprive a specific ward of its democratic rights and to subject such a specific ward (Ward 1) in the Makhado Municipality, to the tyranny of the masses.

By "mobilising" outside wards and deliberately withholding information from and ignoring the predominantly White population of Ward 1, Council is playing a dangerous and totally unprincipled and immoral game of deliberate polarisation of culture- and racial groupings under its jurisdiction – in open defiance and in total rejection of the official government policy of reconciliation. The upliftment of previously disadvantaged cultures is openly used as a pretext to hurt, harm and destroy the existing cultural heritage of non-black communities.

Observers point out that while pretending to uplift and enhance Venda culture, Council is in fact ignoring the most important contribution, which the Venda culture has made in the new South Africa and in Africa as a whole. The founder of the Venda nation was as far as known the very first to turn away from the wide spread African habit of violent and destructive wars of succession after the demise of the tribal leader - creating impressive ruins all over Africa. The Venda people were the first to insist on a traditional system of peaceful and constructive succession, in accordance to the "will of the Almighty Creator God".

This major feature of Venda tradition was highlighted during the centenary festivities of the town Louis Trichardt in a paper by local historian Pieter F Botha, who described the historic meeting and friendship between the Venda leader and the Voortrekker Pioneer Louis Trichardt as the most important event in the casual history of South Africa, because it signalled the inception of a potentially uniting, non-violent culture of mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual acknowledgement of the supreme will of the Creator God. The style and spirit of Council's actions is said to be glaringly out of touch with this unique aspect of Venda culture, which is considered by historians as a role model for the entire Africa and even for civilised society as a whole.

The present resistance and rejection of the suggested new name for the town is not a one-sided White sentiment. The Hlanganani Concerned Group repeatedly voiced its rejection of the name Makhado that they consider as inappropriate, racist and tribalistic. They were, however, refused their democratic right to demonstrate peacefully against what they called Council's one-sided, dictatorial and racist attitude.

Against this backdrop readers and various groupings in the local community seem to concur that it is outrageous that the Limpopo Geographic Names Committee feels itself free to announce its unconditional acceptance of Council's request to change the name of this historic town – built and developed on undeveloped ground – specifically as a memorial to a very significant pioneer, friend and ally of the Venda and Shangaan people.

In an urgent written message to the Vhembe and Limpopo Geographical Names committees, they are requested not to proceed with the process of renaming the town of Louis Trichardt.

The request states: "Your attention is also drawn to the fact that the domino-type string of name changes which are forced onto several other communities in order to legalise the original request, cannot just be simultaneously processed. In order to satisfy the spirit of the legislation which allows for a period of thirty days to lodge objections after promulgation, the suggested name changes should each one be separately processed and finalised, because each and everyone of them is prejudicial to the other. Processing them in one can be construed as a negation of the very principle, which the relevant law wants to enshrine, because it will make it impossible for legitimate objections to make any difference.

"The Makhado Municipal Council has already acted in total contempt of Parliament and its institutions in this matter. You are requested not to condone such unacceptable, unlawful and immoral actions."