Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s suggestion that KwaZulu-Natal’s name be changed should be supported because the current name is associated with suffering and humiliation, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) said on Monday.
”Natal is a colonial name. The name was coined by Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese navigator because he arrived in this part of Africa on December 25 1497. Natal means Christmas Day in Portuguese.
”But Natal has also caused much suffering, dispossession [and] humiliation of African people and murder of African leaders there.
”Much blood was caused to Africans at the Battle of Encome [Blood River] where thousands were killed for protecting their own country against the invading colonialists greedy of African land,” said PAC president Motsoko Pheko.
”King Cetshwayo was dethroned and banished for fighting the colonial aggressors who dispossessed his people. King Dinizulu was banished to St Helena for [the] same [reason].
”It is the Natal British colonial administration which sent Langalibalele to Robben Island after dispossessing his people of their land. It is the same Natal that hanged Bambatha for leading the 1906 war of national resistance against British colonialism in Natal.”
He continued: ”Natal, like all other colonial names, is dripping with the blood of the African people. History must be rewritten.”
He said Africans should stop worshipping colonial names, some of which he considers amusing.
”Orange Free State gave the impression that millions of tonnes of oranges grew here. In fact, no oranges grow there.
”Names tainted with the genocide and holocaust cannot be kept by any self-respecting nation except the most docile people on Earth,” Pheko said.
The Mercury reported that Zwelithini called for the history of the Zulu nation to be rewritten to correct ”falsifications” of history, and for the name of the province to be reconsidered.
Pheko suggested that the province be called simply KwaZulu or ”some other appropriate name”. — Sapa