Opposition politician Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi has added a note of caution to the proposed name change of Durban highway in KwaZulu-Natal — currently named “Mangosuthu Highway” in his honour.
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Buthelezi — who headed the KwaZulu non-independent homeland government from the 1970s to 1994 — said: “If removing my name gives the ruling party the satisfaction of gloating about being at the helm, they must go ahead and enjoy themselves.”
Noting that the power to change names has, indeed, shifted to the black majority and names are increasingly likely to change in the years ahead, Buthelezi reported that eThekwini (including Durban) metro municipality mayor Obed Mlaba has proposed that the highway be named, instead, after late liberation-struggle hero Moses Mabhida.
“Mabhida was a leader of the African National Congress [ANC] whom I admired and with whom I communicated when he was in exile in Swaziland.”
Yet, Buthelezi said in his regular internet column on Friday: “I feel obliged to caution the ruling party against their rush to rewrite the history of this province and country by giving prominence to only ANC-affiliated freedom fighters over everyone else involved in the struggle for liberation; especially those from the minorities.
“It seems to me that freedom fighters who did not hail from the same stable as the ruling party are being given scant consideration.”
It is, he said, the right of communities themselves to rename roads and iconic government structures. And one must be phlegmatic, he added.
As a practical politician who believes the purpose of human fellowship is for action, “I am more concerned about how I will be judged for my role in doing something for the poorest of the poor like those in Umlazi [where the highway runs] than [for] physical epitaphs.”
Buthelezi noted that the highway was named after him to acknowledge his fund-raising efforts that culminated in the establishment of the Mangosuthu Technikon in Umlazi township. “The technikon was funded mainly by [then Anglo American chief] Harry Oppenheimer” and other companies when he had been chief minister of KwaZulu, the non-independent homeland.
“It was my sole initiative, but it was not I who suggested it be named after me. It was Dr Oscar Dhlomo, my [then] minister of education, who suggested that the highway be named after me. This was accepted by the [KwaZulu] cabinet.
“While I know that the removal of my name does not diminish my status or my contribution to the liberation struggle of this country, I genuinely fear that a new name for the Mangosuthu highway could reopen the many old wounds in KwaZulu-Natal which we have striven to heal for many years.
“More than 20Â 000 [people] died in the internecine violence between the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party. I hope the people of Umlazi will be properly canvassed.
“Similarly, one fears that the unseemly haste to rename places like Pretoria and Potchefstroom is not being done with enough consultation with the Afrikaans-speaking residents of these places,” said Buthelezi, who served as national home affairs minister from 1994 to 2004. — I-Net Bridge