White South Africans marched in protest on Thursday against an attempt to rename their town to make it sound more black and African, part of a controversial nation-wide campaign to change place names.
Dozens of white residents in Lydenburg — and one black person — rallied to keep the name given to the town by Dutch settlers in the 19th century. The black mayor, Clara Ndlovu, recently announced that it would change to Mashishing, the name of a nearby black township which means ”wind blowing through the grass”.
Critics accuse the African National Congress government of stirring racial tension by pushing through such changes with little or no consultation.
”We are not protesting against the proposed name but the process behind it,” said Isabel Dickson, an opposition councillor and march organiser. She claimed the ANC mayor ignored procedure and announced the change without any council debate. She said Lydenburg, derived from the Afrikaans word for suffering because of malaria and other hardships endured by the white settlers, was not offensive.
There is broad agreement that places named after British or Boer military men who slaughtered black people, or racially demeaning names such as Kaffirskraal, should be changed. In the last year ANC-aligned officials have gone further, arguing that indigenous names should cleanse the legacy of colonialism and apartheid.
The most bitter row has centred on the capital, Pretoria. Named in honour of an Afrikaner leader, the municipality has been retitled Tshwane and the city itself may follow suit. An engraving on a statue of Chief Tshwane unveiled outside city hall this month said through his ”existence our city origin and history sprung”.
Sceptics said there was scant historical evidence for the chief’s existence. Vandals painted the statue in the colours of South Africa’s apartheid-era flag.
The government appears determined to give Johannesburg International Airport the prefix OR Tambo, after Oliver Tambo, the late ANC leader. It used to be called Jan Smuts, after the Afrikaner prime minister, but was given a politically neutral name after elections ended white minority rule in 1994.
Some black critics said the government was ignoring liberation leaders who were not ANC members, such as Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe.
The renaming has prompted other groups to pitch in. The Pan African Congress has renewed calls for South Africa to be renamed Azania. – Guardian Unlimited Â