PW Botha in George in 1998
Image: BRENTON GEACH
PW Botha Boulevard in George may soon be on the road to change — but only if Patricia de Lille’s party gets its way with a new motion to rename it.
GOOD has submitted a motion to rename the road currently named after the former SA apartheid president.
The proposal will be officially tabled at a council sitting on January 29.
PW Botha Boulevard is a main east–west arterial road running through the Tamsui Industrial area of George on the Garden Route, linking Nelson Mandela Boulevard in the east to York Street in the west.
In the motion, seen by IOL, George councillor Chantelle Kyd asked the council to formally acknowledge that honouring Botha was "inconsistent" with constitutional values.
She also wanted an official renaming process to be started, with inclusive public participation, especially reaching communities historically excluded from such decisions.
The motion invited new proposals for names that reflect "democratic values, social justice, and shared community heritage".
"PW Botha Boulevard remains one of the most prominent public honours in George associated with an apartheid leader whose legacy is inseparable from repression, exclusion and the denial of fundamental human rights," Kyd wrote.
"PW Botha neither acknowledged responsibility for the harms caused under his leadership nor expressed remorse for the system he defended.
"The continued use of this name on public infrastructure is not value-neutral. P
"Public naming reflects the values a municipality chooses to elevate and the histories it chooses to honour.
"In a community still shaped by the social and spatial consequences of apartheid, such symbols carry real meaning and impact."
Botha, who was known as the “Groot Krokodil”, “Piet Skiet”, “Piet Wapen”, or simply “PW”, was prime minister and later state president during SA’s apartheid era.
As president, he enforced brutal apartheid policies, declared states of emergency to suppress resistance, and resisted extending full political rights to the Black majority.
However, under his leadership, secret contacts were made with the ANC, beginning tentative steps toward engaging the Black majority.
But he stopped far short of negotiating full citizenship rights for all South Africans.
Botha eventually resigned in August 1989 after suffering a stroke and facing pressure within his own National Party.
He was succeeded by FW de Klerk, who later began dismantling apartheid and unbanning the ANC.
Approached for comment, Kyd said it was painful that, more than 30 years into democracy, she still had to explain why a major public road should not carry Botha’s name.
"For many of us, especially people of colour, that name is a reminder of a system that brutalised our families and denied our humanity," she said.
"We cannot keep justifying honouring the architects of apartheid in our shared public spaces while asking people to heal and move forward.
"At some point, democracy must show itself not only in our laws, but in the symbols we choose to live with every day.
"Addressing symbols like this is not about reopening old wounds, but about allowing our city to move forward."
Professor Andre Duvenhage, a political analyst at North West University, said Botha deserved recognition in the area.
He said changing names was a political process.
"It is often driven by political parties that, running out of ideas and ideology, turn to symbolic actions to gain power," Duvenhage said.
He said Botha had a long-standing connection to the town of George.
Botha served as the member of parliament for the George constituency from 1948 until he became president.
He later retired to his home, "Die Anker", near Wilderness, close to George, where he died in 2006.
Duvenhage said in 1971, when Botha was minister of defence, he oversaw the opening of the SA Army Women’s College, also known as the Civil Defence College, in George.
He said the college trained female recruits in both basic and specialised military skills and later became a leadership training centre for the army in the 1980s.
The town also had a technical high school long known as PW Botha College, named after him, though the school has since been renamed.
The idea of renaming it is not new.
Back in 2017, the Abeeda Harris Foundation applied to change the road’s name to honour a young girl who was killed during apartheid-era unrest. But the proposal stalled in municipal processes.
A similar motion was submitted in 2016.
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