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Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2000 04:01:45 EST
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Subject: [AfricaMatters] Bidding Farewell to the Names That Evoke Apartheid
November 5, 2000
The New York Times
Bidding Farewell to the Names That Evoke Apartheid
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa — Pretoria's days are numbered. Send your fond
farewells, too, to Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein and East London.
A feverish flurry of name-changing is sweeping the country before local
elections on Dec. 5, as communities cast aside city council names linked to
apartheid or colonialism, or those names deemed ugly or dull.
The city names will not change. The capital, Pretoria, for instance, will
remain Pretoria. But its new local council, which will represent the city of
Pretoria and nearby localities, will be known as the Tshwane Metropolitan
Council. (The cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban have opted to keep
their current council names.)
But after the Dec. 5 election, Bloemfontein's council will adopt the name of
its black township, Manguang. Port Elizabeth will become Nelson Mandela. And
East London's municipality will be known as Buffalo City.
The impetus for the switch is the recent overhaul of local government. Poor
and wealthy city councils are merging to create a smaller group of fiscally
sound councils in an effort to accelerate the delivery of basic services like
water and electricity to the poor. And these new government bodies, some
communities decided, needed new names.
But all the renaming has touched off considerable grumbling, particularly
among whites startled by the proliferation of African names. "Why don't they
focus on building houses and creating jobs?" a white taxi driver said of the
government.
Carl Fischer, the director of municipal administration here, said he was just
relieved that Port Elizabeth had settled on a municipal council name he could
pronounce. "I remember thinking, `Please not one where I find difficulty with
the click sounds.' "
But for some blacks there is a sense of celebration. In their eyes, renaming
means reclaiming the country and brushing away the ugly past. Across the
region, the end of white rule has meant an end to old names.
With black majority rule, for instance, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe; its
capital, Salisbury, became Harare. Northern Rhodesia became Zambia. And the
capital of Mozambique, Lourenço Marques, became Maputo.
"It's the business of reinventing a new national identity," said Tom Lodge, a
professor of politics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
"Or cleaning up or removing symbols and historical associations which don't
fit in with the new political order."
The process is only beginning in earnest here because the first black
government, led by Nelson Mandela, chose to move cautiously on issues that
might inflame racial sensitivities, Mr. Lodge said.
And even in this exercise, the government decided to encourage communities to
change the names of government bodies, not places. Local councils published
notices in newspapers inviting suggestions from the public, political parties
and civic groups.
In Pretoria, where the debate was quite heated, some suggested "Greater
Pretoria" or "Pretoria- Tshwane" before the name Tshwane was chosen. (Tshwane
means "we are one," in Northern Sotho, said Harry Matolong, a city spokesman.
It is also the name that was used by blacks to describe the Pretoria area in
years past.)
"Pretoria reminded blacks of the capital city of apartheid and they wanted to
change it," said Mulalo Nemavhandu, a consultant for the government board
that reduced the number of city councils nationwide from 843 to 284. "But
there was resistance and opposition from certain communities, mainly from
white communities."
Not all of the name changes caused debate.
The city council of the tiny town of Kareedouw, in the Eastern Cape Province,
will transform itself into Kou-Kamma, an amalgamation of the names for the
towering mountain ranges — the Kouga and the Tsitsikamma — that surround it.
"I think it's quite a good name," Koos Havenga, the white owner of Kareedouw
Motors, said as he tinkered under the hood of a white BMW. "We've combined
the names of the two mountains."
For the bureaucrats, of course, the new local council names will mean new
logos, new letterhead, new costs, and, inevitably, public confusion.
But Lorraine Hoza, a black woman who works as a parking attendant in a local
shopping center here, could not be more pleased. She was born and raised here
in Port Elizabeth, but she said that name means nothing in her heart.
Nelson Mandela, on the other hand, well, that's another story.
"The blacks support him," said Ms. Hoza, 47. "We are very happy with this
name."
Ask questions about International News and tell other readers what you know
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