The name Lovendale was difficult to ascertain from where it came from. Because Zimbabwe is now an independent country its difficult to imagine that it could be named after a colonial pioneer or a colonial government official.
In traditional African naming practices, African names carry meaning and moral values. Therefore, to Africans, it is important how we name ourselves and spaces with good names. Ndebele naming practices for example are based on space, time and social circumstance during the time of naming. In colonial times during Christianization of the Ndebele people, parents began to name their children in accordance to their new religious convictions, you have names like, Nkosiyazi, Nkosikhona, Nkosikhona, Lindelinkosi etc. in reference to the lord god himself or Jesus his son.
Also during colonialism, some names with a sober meaning emerged, names which highlighted the suffering wrought by colonialism, the racism, property, cultural, and land loss all brought unspeakable distress to Black people. Therefore, names like Senzeni, Soneni, and Sikhathele, to name a few emerged, they were a plea and a questioning of why suffering was happening to the people. However, after independence and the defeat of colonialism, some Ndebele names began to have a more triumphal meaning. Names like Nqobile, Sinqobile, Nkululeko, and Mangqoba emerged to celebrate the victory against colonialism and the birth of Zimbabwe. Names in the Ndebele context therefore, are used to identify and preserve the memory of the people.
Since Umguza District counsel was not intentional about giving the new township a meaningful Ndebele or any other indigenous Zimbabwean language name, why then was it given an English one? A possible answer may be that giving a township an English name may attract residents and even raise property values. But this answer doent seems to hold up considering the Matshemphophe, Ilanda, and Malindela have Ndebele names, yet their housing values remain high. If a development wants to attract residents and maintain high property and resale values, it has to invest in proper infrastructure, deliver quality service and offer excellent recreational spaces.
Besides colonial naming, our township spatial designs have to change with the times. During colonialism, The white government built segregated townships, in the Eastern part of the cty, they cut themselves large pieces of land, and built spacious homes, their build tarred roads, schools, clinics, shopping centers and recreational areas close to every neighborhood. And on the western side, they built small houses, with two rooms and an outside toilet, like in Njube, They built crammed houses with little to no yards in Makokoba, and flats with tiny apartments in Mpopoma. The roads where mostly not tarred, except for the main roads that passed through the neighborhoods, schools consisted of easy to build blocks with no esthetic value, shopping centers were rarely built, while clinics, parks, libraries were few and far between if any.
These township designs were not built because of charity, they were built to house as many Black people as possible within a small geographic foot print to serve as low paid employees in European owned factories. The proximity of the western townships to the factories was by design. Another reason for the small houses, spaces and lack of social and recreational spaces was to dehumanize Africans, to make them feel unworthy and unimportant.
With all that being said, even after independence, our city couselors and their spatial engineers continue to reproduce colonial style spatial planning, small yards, poor roads, poor sanitation, and poor water management. Service delivery in some newer townships is nonexistent, no clinics, parks, libraries, and schools. Services are gotten from nearby townships with existing infrastructure which ends up causing congestion and leading to poor service delivery for everyone.
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22 авг 2024
