Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Name changing in South Africa was measured, but…
Marcel Berlin is uneasy about a recent almost sudden acceleration in South Africa of the process of changing of names, ostensibly to obliterate remnants of its Boer past.
Recent events in Durban, culminating in protest marches and violence earlier this month, have put name-changing into a new, politically controversial arena. The city (now part of a newly named metropolis, eThekwini) has embarked on a wholesale eradication of place references to colonial and apartheid era figures, and their substitution by world freedom-fighting icons (Che Guevara, Yasser Arafat, etc) and ANC activists, many of them obscure.
I am not suggesting that no other names have been changed or discarded in South Africa, but, until Durban’s mass attack, the pace of the changes has been measured, relaxed and understandable. It took several years for international airports to shed the names of former prime ministers from the bad days; only last year was Johannesburg’s airport renamed after the late, revered president of the ANC, Oliver Tambo. Pretoria is on course to become Tshwane (an African chief), though some of it will still remain Pretoria and there is a fear that too comprehensive a changeover will confuse visitors coming to South Africa for the football World Cup in 2010. There are other examples of name change, and one case of a town that was ordered to revert to its old name (an Afrikaans hero) because it hadn’t followed the proper procedures for renaming.
What troubles me about the Durban initiative is that it shows a meaner, more vengeful, less conciliatory spirit which, I fear, may be catching. It’s all symbolic, I know, but it gives me just a tiny, additional worry about the future.
Mick Fealty @ 08:58 PM
South Africa is still a one party state, only the party has changed.
Horse shit. In actual fact it was never a one party state (the NP had opposition on both its liberal and fascist flanks) and an enormous amount has changed since then. Or I suppose shooting kids for protesting was no big deal, was it?
The same party in power for 46 years, the largest opposition party banned and Helen Suzman the only effective opposition voice in parliament? That’s close enough to a one party state for me.
As for your shooting kids line I am not trying to condone sharpville, apartheid or the national party, I am only pointing out that things haven’t changed as much as people would like to believe.
As Pete Townshend put it “take a look at the new boss, same as the old boss.” Only the skin colour has changed.
Indeed the ANC attempted to gerrymander Cape Town as its the only major city they don’t control.
Yes, and they ended up backing down when they realised the courts would overrule them. Politicians will always be stupid. The question is whether institutions and a proper separation of power prevent abuses.By and large they do in South Africa.
Yes they backed down this time, but power corrupts and the ANC have far too much to be healthy for South Africa. The legal machinery of apartheid blocked effective redress in the courts in the past and it would not be difficult to neuter the judiciary as Mugabe did in Zimbabwe, that other “success” story of overthrowing white minority rule. They already have enough seats to change the constitution if they wish.
Posted by on May 17, 2007 @ 02:36 PMAs Pete Townshend put it “take a look at the new boss, same as the old boss.” Only the skin colour has changed.
I never thought I’d see the day I was defending the ANC, at least not since apartheid fell, because I think they are indeed way too big for their boots, but please, please, please have a sense of perspective. If only the skin colour has changed then where are the Sharpevilles? Who are the Mandelas? Where are the forced deportations? Why aren’t whites and coloureds being coralled into an ‘independent homeland’ around Orania? And why are there prominent white ANC activists like Martinus van Schalkwijk?
People have been expecting the ANC to go bad since the day and hour they took power. They haven’t, at least not in the gross sense. They are, by any reasonable measure, a vast improvement on the National Party administrations and the only people who claim otherwise are people who benefited greatly from the old administration and from apartheid, no matter how distasteful they might have found it all. The comparison with ZANU is fautuos, within a few years of taking power ZANU were massacring Ndebeles. Where is the South African analogue?
There’s plenty to criticise the ANC about - the cronyism, the intolerance of internal dissent, the complete inability to get to grips with crime. But pretending that they are in any way comparable with the National Party is not only stupid and wrong but allows them to claim any criticism comes from whites with a secret hankering for the glory days of apartheid.
Posted by on May 17, 2007 @ 04:20 PMFair enough South Africa is a success compared with other post colonial african states and at the moment a better place than under apartheid. But the ANC of tomorrow, if left unchecked, may well prove to have a moral calibre closer to Mugabe than Mandela. Without a strong opposition the rot will surely set in.
Did you see the interview with Helen Zille on HARDtalk on news24? When the interviewer asked her if there was something rotten at the heart of the ANC she did not disagree. Even Desmond Tutu has warned of the direction the country is taking.
Posted by on May 18, 2007 @ 02:27 PM
