ISSUES AT STAKE: It’s high time we change our place names
What’s in a name? Everything, as far as many are concerned. Close to home, local comment comes from MDU NCALANE, who in his private capacity says we should start by changing the name of Melmoth
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has sharply called for a name change for the town Melmoth to a new name that will reflect the local demographics of people of that area, possible uMthojaneni.
He brought to the fore a call to reflect and introspect as Africans, and to look at trails of oppression and apartheid that we are ignoring as society.
He even avoided calling the name ‘Melmoth’, citing the severe oppression of black people by Sir Osborne Melmoth.
I concur with these sentiments concerning all the geographical names that are devoid of democratic reflection, freedom and power attained in 1994.
In KZN, we still have place names which praise our oppressors, derogatory place names, geographical names that celebrate apartheid and oppression.
We still have place names that bring pain and anger; names that reflect acceptance of defeat even when we are free from slavery.
Most of our towns and cities are a constant reminder that we were once defeated, and they praise colonialists.
We still hold high regard for those who belittled us, took our land, our dignity.
It is not acceptable that in 22 years of democracy, we cannot explain why we have not changed major city names in our province.
The majority of our masses do not relate to Mr Melmoth. We have no business with Rear Admiral Sir Frederick William Richards, who landed troops on the Zululand coast in 1879.
We need to archive Benjamin Sir D’urban and move Theophilus Shepstone away to museums.
We need to give effect to the Geographical Names Act to root out all misspelt African place names. This is insult to our language and we have all the rights to correct or change to what suits us as residents of the area.
Opposition parties will always cite costs and tell us that the change will affect tourism, but it’s time we consider changing our place names, street names and all geographical features to reflect our history and heritage.
If we fail our people now, history will judge us harshly.
