Right royal mess: The suggestion by King Misuzulu that KwaZulu-Natal should be renamed KwaZulu would
not correct a historical injustice, the writer argues.
Few issues ignite public passion as quickly as place names.
They sit at the intersection of history, identity and power, carrying emotional weight far beyond their letters.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini’s proposal to remove “Natal” from the name “KwaZulu-Natal” has generated intense debate.
Supporters frame the proposal as an overdue act of decolonisation and cultural justice; critics warn that it oversimplifies a complex past.
As historians, we are compelled to ask a more fundamental question: Does the proposed renaming reflect historical truth?
Place names are never neutral. They encode layers of memory, authority and belonging, revealing who had the power to define space at particular moments in history.
In postcolonial societies, renaming is often presented as symbolic repair — a means of undoing colonial erasure.
Yet symbolism does not automatically translate into historical accuracy. When renaming is grounded in selective memory rather than evidence, it risks reproducing the very distortions it seeks to correct.
The argument for removing “Natal” rests on the claim that, before colonial intrusion, the region was known as KwaZulu and formed part of the Zulu kingdom.
From this perspective, “Natal” is a foreign imposition dating from Vasco da Gama’s arrival on the east coast in 1497. Its removal is portrayed as cultural restoration.
There is undeniable moral force in recognising the historical significance of the Zulu kingdom, which under leaders such as Shaka ka Senzangakhona emerged in the early 19th century as one of the most powerful polities in southern Africa.
The demographic predominance of isiZulu speakers today further strengthens the emotive appeal of this claim.
But historical prominence at a particular moment does not equate to timeless territorial ownership. To project the 19th-century Zulu kingdom onto the entire geography of the present-day province is an act of anachronism.
It collapses historical contingency into an essentialised narrative of continuous Zulu sovereignty — a
narrative unsupported by the historical record.
Long before the rise of the Zulu kingdom and throughout its expansion, the region now known as KwaZulu-Natal was characterised by remarkable political and cultural diversity.
African polities such as the Mthethwa, Ndwandwe, Qwabe, AmaLala and others occupied and contested the landscape. Even at the height of Zulu power, territorial boundaries were fluid, porous and frequently contested.
Large areas lay beyond direct Zulu control or were incorporated through shifting alliances, conquest and assimilation.
The idea that the entire region constituted “KwaZulu” in any stable or timeless sense is therefore historically inaccurate.
The point has been emphasised by scholars such as Professor Musa Xulu, who reminds us that KwaZulu-Natal has never been a culturally singular space.
To rename the province KwaZulu would privilege one historical narrative at the expense of others, flattening a plural past into a singular identity. Ironically, this mirrors the logic of colonial historiography, which routinely simplified African societies and imposed rigid categories to serve political ends.
The origins of the name “Natal” are, of course, deeply colonial. Vasco da Gama’s christening of the coast as Terra do Natal on Christmas Day in 1497 ignored the presence of existing African societies and asserted European symbolic authority.
The act deserves neither celebration nor nostalgia.
Yet the subsequent embedding of the name “Natal” in regional, colonial and global history over several centuries is itself a historical fact. Acknowledging this does not endorse colonialism; it recognises that history is layered, often uncomfortable and resistant to moral purification.
The post-apartheid name “KwaZulu-Natal”, adopted in 1994, was not a bureaucratic accident.
It emerged from a deliberate political and symbolic compromise during South Africa’s democratic transition.
The name sought to hold together multiple historical inheritances: African sovereignty and colonial legacy, indigenous presence and settler history. It was an attempt — imperfect, but intentional — to acknowledge historical plurality rather than assert cultural hierarchy.
Removing “Natal” would unravel the balance. It would replace a negotiated, inclusive symbol with one that elevates a single historical narrative above all others.
In a province marked by deep ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity, such an act risks alienation rather than healing.
At a deeper level, the renaming proposal forces us to confront how societies remember and forget.
Decolonisation is frequently framed as subtraction: removing colonial names, symbols and statues. Yet historians of memory warn that erasure rarely produces justice.
More often, it generates new exclusions, substituting one form of symbolic dominance for another.
When history is simplified to serve present-day cultural or political objectives, it ceases to be history and becomes myth.
This is where historians have a crucial public responsibility. As EH Carr observed, history is a dialogue between the past and the present — but it is not a free-for-all.
Evidence matters. Context matters. Complexity matters. Sandra Swart’s description of historians as “dangerous people” is instructive: historians are dangerous because they disrupt comforting myths, unsettle power and refuse to allow the past to be disciplined for political convenience.
In post-apartheid South Africa, history is frequently mobilised to legitimise authority, consolidate identity or claim moral high ground.
Silence in such moments risks complicity. The task of historians is not to oppose cultural redress, nor to defend colonial residues for their own sake but to insist that the past not be distorted in the name of justice, perceived or real.
Renaming KwaZulu-Natal “KwaZulu” would not correct a historical injustice. It would create a new one by privileging a singular narrative over a demonstrably
plural past.
In doing so, it would echo the colonial practices of simplification and symbolic domination that decolonisation seeks to undo.
Nation-building requires shared ownership of history, not competitive claims to it.
If South Africa is serious about building a cohesive and inclusive society, it must resist the temptation to resolve historical discomfort through symbolic erasure.
The past cannot be purified without being falsified. KwaZulu-Natal, with all its layered, contested and often painful histories, remains a more honest reflection of who we are — and how we got here — than any simplified alternative.
History does not belong to kings, politicians or even historians alone. It belongs to the evidence. And the evidence, in this case, does not support the proposed renaming.
Bhekamachunu H Zwelethu Mchunu is an academic, historian and rural development practitioner with more than 20 years’ experience across various sectors.