Pretoria - Building 21 at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) has been renamed Dinokeng – the place of Rivers, as the institution moves away from the faceless and grey façade it had presented.
TUT said it did this as it remained cognisant of South Africa’s history of pain and determined to reinvent the future of the institution.
Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Tinyiko Maluleke said Dinokeng spoke of a place overflowing with life. “It is a place of life and buoyancy and in naming this place Dinokeng, we have marked it as a place that will bubble with fresh ideas intended to build the people’s university.”
He said naming and renaming was a powerful way of rewriting the slanted past.
Referring to the first sentence of Nelson Mandela’s biography Long Walk to Freedom, Maluleke said: “The beautiful, backhanded tribute which the great Nelson Mandela pays to his father when he wrote: Apart from life, a strong Constitution and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth, was a name, Rolihlahla (troublemaker).
“Names may not be destiny, and they may not be the be the all and end all of transformation, but they play a crucial role in helping us to navigate the many storms of our lives, and in helping us shape our own destinies”.
In further emphasising Dinokeng speaks of a place overflowing with life, he said: “It is a place of life and buoyancy. In naming this place Dinokeng, we have marked it as a place that will bubble with fresh ideas intended to build the people’s university.”
Dinokeng symbolises a constellation and a confluence, where great ideas from a diversity of origins, persons and communities will come together, in the service of TUT staff and students, and to call the building Dinokeng was to suggest that the place would sparkle with the energy required to nurture and incubate future-ready graduates.
At the recent renaming ceremony, award-winning author and human rights activist Elinor Sisulu from the Department of Applied Languages, congratulated the university on its commitment to the transformation imperative.
“Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the milestones of one of the most iconic and noticeable representations and embodiment of TUT’s identity, or its personhood – its buildings. The process of naming and renaming facilities is the first critical and formal step of recreating TUT’s identity … The reconstruction of an identity involves the reclamation of our history and rewriting our own stories as Africans and as TUT – who we are,” she said.
Maluleke ended his address saying: “May the swirling waters of Dinokeng refresh and revitalise the dozens and hundreds who enter and exit this building …”
Pretoria News