Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Weekly Newsletter to the Nation

In over half-a-century of public life one has received some unusual accolades. It has been drolly said that "politics feeds one's vanity and starves one's self respect", but one of the most unusual and touching honours I ever received was the naming of Mangosuthu Highway in Durban during my time as Chief Minister. For me this was much better than having, say, a battle cruiser, or even an airport, named after me.
Especially as such honours are usually conferred after the person has died!

The highway was named after me (not at my request) to acknowledge my fundraising efforts which culminated in the establishment of the Mangosuthu Technikon. The Technikon was funded mainly by Harry Oppenheimer and the Anglo-American Company and other companies when I was Chief Minister. It was my sole initiative, but it was not I who suggested it be named after me. It was Dr Oscar Dhlomo, my Minister of Education, who suggested that the highway be named after me. This was accepted by the cabinet.

And yet the present Mayor of Durban, in his capacity as a member of the Mangosuthu Technikon Board of Governors, has repeatedly made proposals that my name be removed so that the Technikon is not named after me. The Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital which was also built by the KwaZulu government is situated along the same highway. As many residents will recall, Umlazi was built on traditional land that belonged to the Cele clan. The negotiations for its release were piloted by me. Furthermore my launch of property rights for women and for widows in particular, was launched in Umlazi. This was not the most popular idea at the time.

It is now proposed that the highway in question be named after Moses Mabhida. Moses Mabhida was a leader of the ANC whom I admired and with whom I communicated when he was in exile in Swaziland. My response?

First, it is of course, the right of communities themselves to rename roads and iconic Government structures. And one must be phlegmatic. 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 - than physical epitaphs. If removing my name gives the ruling-party the satisfaction of gloating about being at the helm, they must go ahead and enjoy themselves.
Yet, I would make one cautionary note.

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. This is short-sighted and in the long run, counterproductive. Moreover the history of the liberation struggle began many centuries ago. And in the KwaZulu-Natal, in particular, some of our kings and traditional leaders participated in the more real and devastating armed-struggle than the armed-struggle everyone speaks of today.

Renaming must not be conducted in a manner befitting Mao's Cultural Revolution in which names and events that do not fit into the ruling-party's liberation narrative are disdainfully ejected. There is a well-documented story of a street in Leipzig, Germany, which, built in 1900s, first bore the name of Kaiser Wilhelm, then, during the time of the Weimar Republic, became Republic Road, subsequently, for the duration of the Third Reich, was named after Adolf Hitler, and later, during the era of the communist East Germany, was renamed after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - only to resume its original, imperial name after the reunification of Germany in 1990. Five different names in a century!

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 re-open the many old wounds in KwaZulu Natal which we have striven to heal for many years. More than 20 000 died in the internecine violence between the ANC and the IFP. 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.

The objection here is not to the principle of name changing per se, it is rather an expression of fear, amongst many Afrikaners and other minorities, that their historical legacy, such as the Great Trek or the Boer War, is being airbrushed out of history. Many in my own nation, the Zulus, share similar concerns. A good example of this is the manner in which King Senzangakhona's name has become a political football for the ruling-party as a proposed name for the 2010 soccer stadium in Durban.

The anger in the Indian community about the renaming of Point Road in Durban after Mahatma Gandhi provides another pertinent example of the lack of proper consultation. Even though the Mahatma's granddaughter, Ms Ella Gandhi, had no problem with this, it is clear that the majority of the Indian people would have suggested otherwise were they properly consulted.

I do subscribe to the view that it is important to draw a line under the trauma of our apartheid history. Renaming places associated with the apartheid regime is one way of coming to terms with our painful past.
But it is not the most important.

When Pretoria was named Tshwane, "we are the same", the Executive Mayor Smangaliso Mkhatshwa claimed during an acrimonious four-hour debate "by embarking on this process and project of transformation, our country is making a clear distinction between the old and the new, the past and the present". With all due respect, Lord, help us.
If we are to give the post-apartheid transformation real substance, we need to convince the poorest of the poor, those true victims of apartheid, that the new South Africa is genuinely a better place. In their imagination, it must compare more favourably to apartheid in terms of living standards. No amount of renaming can compensate for higher crime levels or lack of jobs.

Yet the process of renaming does have precedent in other transforming societies. India ,since its post-war independence, has also been busy dismantling colonial names. The most well known of these changes happen to have centered on cities-Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), Mumbai (Bombay), Bengaluru (Bangalore). In Nigeria, three of the four major airports in Nigeria are also named after individuals affiliated to the liberation struggle.

Here I totally supported the renaming of Johannesburg International after Oliver Tambo, but my hunch is that most people couldn't care less what airports are called. Lets make this a once off; not least because repetition devalues the idea. I suspect that it would probably be a mistake to rename the politically neutral Cape Town International Airport which is rightly branded as the gateway to the world's "fairest cape".

The calls to rename London's Heathrow airport after Princess Diana fell on deaf ears even during the week of the outpouring of national grief for this much loved princess. New York's Kennedy and Paris's Charles de Gaulle have somehow entered the public imagination, but I suspect this is because air travel had the allure of glamour in the life and times of these iconoclastic leaders.

One can almost be certain that name changes will become more commonplace in South Africa. This, it can be argued, is the natural order of things given that 'power' now resides with the majority black population. But, should such name changes go on without regard for the fact that a part of South Africa's linguistic and cultural heritage traces its roots to the Dutch and British immigrants - white Africans - who first graced the shores of the Cape hundreds of years ago? Name changes, I think, should be made only in exceptional circumstances.

And then, for me the ever practical politician, there is the money concern. Renaming is a costly business. Not only does it entail the cost of new road signs and maps financed by the government, but it also puts pressure on businesses and individuals who are obliged to accommodate the changes on their letterheads and so on. All this may or may not be unfair. In addition, renaming as a protracted process rather than a once-off solution escalates the related costs. Is it, all things considered, not better to spend the taxpayers' money on some real work of transformation?

Yours sincerely

Mangosuthu Buthelezi MP

Ifp.org.za