South Africa’s drive to abolish colonial and apartheid-era place names has met surprise resistance in parts of the black community, where activists accuse the ruling African National Congress (ANC) of honouring only its own heroes.
Thousands of demonstrators thronged the streets of Durban, now part of a newly named major metropolis called eThekwini, on May Day to protest government proposals to rename close to 200 buildings, roads and other landmarks.
The protest, led by the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), said the city’s ANC-dominated council had railroaded through the name changes without enough consultation.
Among the names suggested were Andrew Zondo, Solomon Mahlangu, Anton Lembede and Moses Mabhida, all heroes of the ANC, which in 1994 led South Africa to its first all-race elections.
Debate over name changes is nothing new in South Africa, where the government has gradually rewritten the map to phase out many place names honouring apartheid-era white leaders and the country’s earlier colonial legacy.
Port Elizabeth is now officially the Nelson Mandela Metropole, Pietersburg has become Polokwane and the former province of Transvaal has been split into three: Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
The process has already raised hackles among some Afrikaners, white descendents of original French and Dutch settlers who were the architects of apartheid and stamped their names across many of South Africa’s landmarks.
”At the moment, the ANC is imposing its heroes on everyone and some of the name changes are very controversial and carry a lot of emotions,” said Dr Pieter Mulder, leader of the opposition Freedom Front Plus party, a conservative Afrikaner-dominated group.
”This latest protest shows what a complicated country South Africa is and the African National Congress is making a mistake in trying to simplify it as oppressors and liberators,” he said.
Tension by any other name
The Durban protests reflected longstanding tensions between the ANC and the IFP, which commands a strong following in the Zulu-dominated KwaZulu-Natal province but is badly outnumbered in the national Parliament.
ANC and IFP cadres waged bloody battles in KZN before and after the 1994 elections, and the IFP lost control of KZN to ANC in the 2004 general elections.
The ANC has proposed to change the name of Umlazi’s Mangosuthu Highway, named after current IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to Griffiths Mxenge Highway in honour of a slain ANC activist and lawyer.
To the IFP, this is a slap in the face. ”Including Mangosuthu’s names with apartheid era names to be abolished is an insult,” said Thembi Nzuza, IFP caucus leader in the eThekwini Council.
”Not that we are fighting only for the IFP,” she added.
”We have a whole list of IFP leaders dead and alive, who also fought for our freedom, but it will be unfair for us politicians to fight for recognition because there are many artists, sportsmen and women and ordinary people who have made contributions and should be recognised,” she added.
Court battles
Other opponents of name changes have turned to the courts, and this year the Supreme Court of Appeal ordered the town of Makhado to revert to its original name — Louis Trichardt — in the first ruling against a government-sanctioned name change.
The town had been renamed Makhado following a proposal by the local council in June 2003, angering local businessmen who say the process was done by government fiat.
Sandile Memela, spokesperson for the Ddepartment of Arts and Culture, said the department had accepted the court ruling and acknowledged that protests meant there should be wider consultation over South Africa’s new place names.
”The process of name-change, which is an essential part of transformation, is not wrong, the protests simply point out that there may not have been enough consultation,” he said.
Even the country’s capital has become embroiled in the debate, with a move to drop the original Afrikaans name Pretoria and substitute it for ”Tswhane” after a local African chief mired in controversy.
The plan was contested by the Pretoria Civil Action Committee, a civic group who opposed the name change on the grounds that the name had cultural significance for the country’s Afrikaners and changing it would be a costly exercise.
Karl Kriel, CEO of AfriForum, a civil rights group formed by traditionally white trade union Solidarity, said rising discontent over name changes across the country pointed to a growing arrogance on the part of the ANC.
”The problem of name changes underlies a bigger problem of recognition and respect that we need to take this country forward. The input of many groups, including civil society, has been ignored in the renaming process and that is part of why we have problems.”
John Steenhuisen, caucus leader in the Durban area for the largely white opposition Democratic Alliance, put it bluntly.
”The ANC has hijacked the name change process in favour of their heroes,” he said. – Reuters