IBHAYI
Province: Cape Province
Regional Services Council: Algoa
Incorporated: into Port Elizabeth, 1995
The arms were registered with the State Herald under the name of the short-lived Khayamnandi City Council. They continued in use when the municipality changed its name to Ibhayi City Council. They may be blazoned:
Arms: azure, a fret or; upon a chief wavy argent an annulet between two cinquefoils, all gules.
Crest: issuant from a mural crown azure a lowe of flame or charged with an anchor proper.
Mantling: argent and azure.
Motto: United We Stand.
Background to arms:
I do not have an official description of these arms. The cinquefoils are most likely taken from the arms of Port Elizabeth, and the anchor likewise. The annulet is perhaps an allusion to the gold annulets of Van Riebeeck, which appear on the (red) mural crown in Port Elizabeth’s arms.
Aside from these allusions, the symbolism is unclear and must have meant little to the inhabitants of the municipality. The symbols are entirely Western, and no attempt appears to have been made to find symbols that had meaning in any African culture.
The use of English for the motto is also inappropriate. It might have been acceptable in Soweto (now in Gauteng), where the inhabitants are more or less evenly divided between the nine vernacular language groups, but not in Port Elizabeth.
About the municipality:
The municipality was formed in 1979 (as Khayamnandi) from black residential areas previously administered by the Port Elizabeth Municipality – New Brighton, Red Location, Kwazakhele, Zwide and adjacent areas. They had, during the 1970s, been removed from the City Council’s control and placed under the Eastern Cape Bantu Administration Board (later called the Eastern Cape Administration Board). The residential areas were traditionally called locations, but by this time it had become fashionable to call them townships – this despite the fact that virtually no black residential areas were in fact proclaimed townships.
The name Khayamnandi means “home of happiness”.
The formation of the municipality – and others like it across South Africa – was the fulfilment of a long-held dream of the National Party government, which wanted to achieve total separation in civil life and especially in administrative and representative structures between peoples of different races in South Africa.
The inhabitants of Ibhayi were officially held to be amaXhosa, but although speakers of isiXhosa were by far and away the majority in the area, there were many speakers of South Sotho (Sesotho sa Borwa) and other languages also resident in the municipality.
Because the municipality had been created for Xhosa-speaking people, it was given a name in that language. Ibhayi is the traditional Xhosa name for Port Elizabeth, and is now the official Xhosa name for the entire city.
Elections were held for a city council, but because the existence of municipalities of this kind was utterly rejected by the majority of the inhabitants, few people bothered to either register or vote, and the council elected in this fashion was held to be a body of stooges and Uncle Toms. Eventually the mayor and councillors were forced to resign – as also happened in many black municipalities across the country – and the Town Clerk was given extraordinary powers to act without the authority of a municipal council.
One of the first acts of the post-apartheid Government of National Unity was to abolish separate municipalities of this kind and re-integrate them into the municipalities they had previously formed part of – in this case, the City of Port Elizabeth.
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Comments, queries: Mike Oettle