The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) is strongly opposed to the proposed name changes of towns and geographical sites in the Eastern Cape.
The latest document issued by the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee confirms that the Committee will proceed with the process of changing the names of, among others, Lady Grey to Inkosi Makhobeni, Sterkspruit to Inkosi Mpangazi and Herschel to Inkosi Lihlongo.
The Freedom Front Plus’s policy on name changes is clear: We condemn all unnecessary, costly and politically driven name changes that divide communities, waste taxpayers’ money, and attempt to erase existing history and identity.
State capacity and public funds should rather be used to tackle urgent service delivery problems, infrastructure, unemployment and poverty.
A place name is more than just a signpost along the road. It forms part of a community’s history, heritage and identity. When local residents strongly object, government cannot simply proceed as if their voices are of no consequence.
The Freedom Front Plus believes that communities’ right to consultation and preserving their heritage ought to be respected.
In addition, the timing and handling of this process raise serious concern. Attempts to change existing town names shortly before an election create the impression that political interests and vote-catching are more important than service delivery.
Residents are frequently invited to attend public participation processes and make submissions, but when they dare object to proposed changes, they feel that their input falls on deaf ears. It is unacceptable.
The Freedom Front Plus stands for a government that respects communities, truly listens to them and puts their actual priorities first.
The party will oppose these name changes and continue to defend residents’ right to consultation, and preserving their history and identity.
FF+ Manifesto on Federalism: The party advocates for a federal system of government to decentralize power.
Lady Killer
Australia: You have two cows. Upon further inspection, you realize that one is a koala, the other a kangaroo.
Lumberyard
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.