Gillwell should inspire Ebuhlanti

There have been two important events in the city this past week that deserve comment. The first is the completion and opening of the R316 landmark Gillwell Taxi Rank Park at the western entrances to the city.

Similarly in South Africa, for those who had been historically denied such freedom there has been nothing as effective as a fast sleek motor car to symbolise their arrival as free, aspirant middle class black citizens.

In a motor city like East London, home of Mercedes Benz, there is, of course, no small contradiction in the uncritical adoption of a luxury city cars, produced by exploited black labour, as a primary symbol of power and status.

So there are two versions of African nationalism being expressed in this space, one is an automobile-driven black nationalism which celebrates middle class membership, urbanity, global citizenship through consumerism.

The other is a narrower exclusionary local version of African nationalism and ethnicity – expressing Xhosa-ness – and projecting the kraal as the symbol of the nation. The kraal is not uniquely Xhosa and has a wider resonance for black South Africans in general, which is also why the president’s home at Nkandla is both so powerful and contested a symbol. Ebuhlanti, therefore, invites Africans to come “home”.

For many Ebuhlanti is the replacement of their rural kraals as the preferred home-coming space at Christmas.

But at the same time the place is a physical mess, an undeveloped littered eyesore, which is hardly an asset to the city.

The answer at Ebuhlanti requires a shift from the current rights-based recreation culture, which states that we are black and we will do what we want here because we have a right to the city, to a new developmental model which embraces the home-coming spirit of the place and its cultural vibrancy and works on developing that into a range of facilities and services which help to entrench the homecoming brand of the city.

As in many other areas of urban life in South Africa, there is an urgent need here for a shift to occur between the assertion of rights to a process of genuine and sustainable development.

I believe the Gillwell Taxi Rank Park, which has radically transformed an informal, littered and degraded city space into a shining example of black empowered development perhaps provides a model for Ebuhlanti too.

Ebuhlanti now needs to move beyond its current definition as defiant hub to assert the right to the city, to a properly planned and developed precinct, which is a genuine long term asset to the city.

Professor Leslie Bank heads Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research.