What is the identity of a country, a city, or a place and how is it (identity) determined? What is the identity of Nairobi city?
Nairobi city is, by many standards, a people's city; a mini-world of sort, a house of diversity. Its influence (social, economic or political) reverberates across the East African sub-region.
By national standards, Nairobi is that "dream city" that every Kenyan would want to visit and even live in. In terms of planning and urbanization, it is relatively far ahead of many urban centers in Kenya. Its place - materially or otherwise - cannot be ignored whenever matters of spatial planning, urban agglomeration, naming of public spaces and/or streets are discussed.
It is at the backdrop of this that I find it important to revisit the question of naming spaces with a view to exploring the philosophy behind it, the perceived quality a name confers to a place, the attendant benefits accruing from it (the name), the role of citizens in determining the name of a place and the rationale of effecting the same.
Without prejudice to those charged with the responsibility of performing this, I hold that our naming of public spaces (streets, public buildings, schools, dispensaries et al) is below par.
Naming, in its holistic perspective, has not been given the attention it deserves. In many instances, we resort to naming for convenience purposes and not as the raison d'étre of the people involved (the real owners of spaces).
There are many reasons why naming is as important as the very existence of human beings. Anything - or anyone - at the service of humans is identified by a name(s). There are parameters to help us do this.
First. The memory of the place and/or building. Public spaces are depositories of vital information of epochal events that shaped the collective soul of the people living there. They freshen histories and connect generations. In some cases, people retreat to these places to “soul search” and (to) re-energise their collective resolve to confront a perceived or real enemy. Uhuru park is one such place. Tahrir Square in Cairo comes to mind.
Second. Naming places to honour heroes and people of higher standing in the society. Making a socio-political statement - since the beginning of time - has been the in-thing of human beings. It is no different now. We "reward" our leaders by naming public spaces after them. It is one way of collectively "owning" heroes.
Third. Names carry "blessings". It is a common practice across the globe for people to name public places after prominent (mostly wealthy) chaps in recognition for their financial/material input. In other cases, the name we pick, say for a school or a hospital, determines the continued flow of support to such an entity. Rural folks know this better.
Fourth. We confer "popular" names to certain places, say a main avenue in a city, as statement of the importance of the place and activities happening there. Qualitative and quantitative thinking, you see.
Fifth. Though infrequently recognized, the shortness of a name and ease-with-which to pronounce it gives it an upper hand. We name places to ease our works - not complicate our brains. The shorter the name, the less troublesome it is to the people. More so to the usual suspects - our drivers and other road users. A case in point is Moi Avenue.
Back to where we began. Devolution has brought to the fore the need to rethink this aspect. We have histories to preserve. Our society is teaming with many unsung heroes passing their time in the villages. We have a rich cultural heritage to showcase and "sell" to the world.
Isn't it time to reconfigure our thoughts and contextualize the appellations of our places? The marriage between the owners of spaces and their spaces can be fully effected through names. Are we ready to go this far?
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