The New Women of Transvaal

One question remains unanswered: why did a group of residents cover the street sign of the Reitzstraat with a new subscript?

This action was not about Reitz as a person specifically. The new captions seem to act as a playful way to display more female role models in the neighborhood. After all, all the original street names refer to men. Hence the situation that the De Wetstraat, originally named after Christiaan de Wet, now temporarily refers to his mother. The street name itself, Reitzstraat, remains unchanged.

At the same time, the new sticker provides food for thought on how we should and should not treat the sensitive histories that play a role in the modern cityscape. A Boer, black Afrikaner or Brit will all look differently at the political policy of Francis Reitz. For some, having to remember this history by its statues and street names can be painful, because they feel as though they lay the foundation for the later Apartheid, while for others, the Boers are part of a long forgotten history.