Capital city relocation is one of the more innovative tools for building states and national identity, writes Blessing Manale.
Capital relocation - the physical move of the central state apparatus from one location to another - is an unusual tool for nation and state-building. Yet, it is used more often than we may expect.
Throughout history, we have seen it in countries such as Brazil (Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, the capital), Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur to the created capital of Putrajaya) and Russia (Moscow to St Petersburg and back to Moscow).
On the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s freedom in 2014, during Tshwane’s State of the City Address, we made a call that ours was not just a city, but a people’s capital.
It is for this reason that all South Africans should join the executive mayor of Tshwane and express our utmost appreciation of the call made by President Jacob Zuma for national dialogue on the relocation of Parliament from Cape Town to the capital city.
There are some offering a view that this move is bizarre, misguided, and extravagant, and others harbouring the view that this call mystifies some political agenda by the ruling party and, furthermore, that it defies reason.
But capital city relocation is one of the more innovative tools for building states and national identity.
It is a very large undertaking and most leaders are afraid of taking on the financial, logistical and political costs involved.
We believe that relocation of Parliament to our city would constitute a massive spatial reconfiguration and be the biggest intervention witnessed since 1994, when we designated our nine provinces.
Although many nations’ capitals are defined by Constitution or legislation, all our long-time capitals have no legal designation as such; they are recognised as capitals as a matter of convention and because all or almost all the country’s central political institutions, such as government departments, the supreme court, legislature and embassies are located in or near them.
The City of Tshwane, in line with Vision 2055 and the fundamentals as set out in the 1955 Freedom Charter, aspires to be an inclusive and liveable city for all those who live in it, but it has not sufficiently exploited its position as the nation’s capital.
Read: Cape Town ‘obvious choice for capital’
It is South Africa’s capital city and provides a lens through which the African continent and the rest of the world see the country.
It is home to 134 foreign embassies and missions, making it the largest home of diplomatic and foreign missions in the world after Washington DC in the US.
By area, it is the third largest metropolitan municipality in the world, after New York and Tokyo.
Tshwane is recognised in the fields of manufacturing, technology, electronics and defence design and construction; it is a business and investment capital, and having motoring giants Nissan, BMW, Ford and Tata in the nearby industrial areas has led to Tshwane becoming known as the motor capital of South Africa.
The city is the knowledge centre of South Africa and the region and boasts three premier universities - Unisa, the largest distance institution, the University of Pretoria and the Tshwane University of Technology - the Innovation Hub, national Biodiversity Institute, National Zoological Gardens, National Library of South Africa, National Archives and more.
Tshwane is renowned for its natural heritage; it is home to the earliest proclaimed sanctuary on the continent in the 500 hectare Groenkloof Nature Reserve which was proclaimed in 1895 and one of the largest urban nature reserves, the Rietvlei Nature Reserve.
This is a unique retreat where many bird and animal species can be viewed on the 3 800 ha of open grassland.
It also recently became the only city in the world with a Big Five game reserve within city boundaries - the 90 000 ha Dinokeng Big 5 Game Reserve.
The Tswaing Meteorite Crater in Soshanguve, 40km to the north of the city centre, is the only eco-tourism destination of its kind in Africa.
Tshwane is home to the Nan Hua Buddhist Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere and the only one on the continent.
The rationale for moving a capital is to bolster economic performance and enhance administrative functions; a well-designed and well-executed capital move could bring economic opportunities and government services to the people.
Relocation of a capital is an act full of symbolic import. New capitals (or existing cities radically refashioned into capital cities) are designed to highlight the place of the state in the modern economic and political world.
We are certain that such a development would reorganise the city’s spatial outlook as both a high-density but socially inclusive city, growing local economies, bringing our people closer to workplaces and enhancing their quality of life.
*Manale is spokesman to the Tshwane executive mayor. He writes in his personal capacity.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Pretoria News