S.africa Place Names

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company The New York Times January 4, 2005 Tuesday Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Foreign Desk; Pg. 3

All Together Now: Make It 'Marching to Tshwane' By MICHAEL WINES PRETORIA, South Africa, Jan. 1 Long ago, New York was New Amsterdam. Beijing was Peking. Mumbai morphed from Bombay, Myanmar is the country formerly known as Burma, and even Cary Grant was once Archie Leach. So is it such a big deal if Pretorians want to call their city Tshwane? City fathers here think not. Next month, the 142-member council that rules this city and its suburbs will receive a scholarly report on the merits of consigning ''Pretoria'' -- a name that honors the white victor in an especially gruesome battle against blacks -- to the dustbin of geography. The goal is to replace it by year's end with the name of a chief who ruled here before whites arrived in the mid-1800's. ''Tshwane is the authentic African name for Pretoria,'' proclaims the Web site for the Pretoria metropolitan area, which already calls itself Tshwane. '' Also interesting is that the word tshwane means 'we are the same' or 'we are one because we live together.''' But, so far, Pretoria's proposed name change is less a unifier than the flash point of a spirited debate -one replete with divisions over politics, history and especially the shifting role of race in the South African character. There was an angry exchange in Parliament between members of the governing African National Congress, who say they want to ''rectify European history,'' and white members of minority parties, who say that history should not be casually erased. In the city itself, the renaming campaign has dragged on for two years, hamstrung by citizens' confusion and fierce opposition from the Democratic Alliance, the multiracial but white-led minority party that holds about a third of the metro council's elected seats. It is too simple to say that only the city's blacks want to scrap Pretoria. Nor is it true that only whites seek to preserve the name, which has persisted through 149 years and three separate South African nations. But in a democracy based on reconciliation between white oppressors and their black victims, erasing the name of the nation's administrative capital is a deeply symbolic move -- and one that clearly reflects the rising confidence and power of this nation's black majority.

The metropolitan mayor, Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, said as much in November when he accepted a report on the issue from a committee of 14 academics. ''The matter is quite sensitive,'' he said then. ''We are dealing with human beings and their fears.'' But if a majority of people want the city's name changed, he said, opponents will have to accept it. South Africa's black rulers might never have broached the topic a decade ago. But after a decade of politely tolerating Pretoria, George and sheaves of other names imposed by colonial occupiers, the A.N.C. has lately embarked on something of a campaign to reclaim the nation's native African identity. Eastern Cape Province, one of nine, has been debating for two years whether to rename itself KwaNtu, Ekhaleni or KwaXhosa. Western Cape Province may keep its identity, but is considering name changes for as many as 11,000 locales, led by George, a coastal golf and beach mecca whose proposed new name is Outeniqua, taken from surrounding mountains. Limpopo, once called Northern Province, has ordered a host of newly renamed towns -- among them Bela-Bela (formerly Warmbaths), Makhado (Louis Trichardt) and Mookgopong (Naboomspruit) -- to start renaming facilities like airports and hospitals to conform to their new titles. Late this year, the government mounted a two-month road show just to allow South Africans to vent their feelings on names that they regard as insulting, racist or merely past their prime. That exercise concludes this winter with a national conference on name changes, sponsored by the government's Geographic Names Council, in Johannesburg. Plenty of names are in need of change: streams, villages and roads still incorporate racially derogatory terms like ''kaffir,'' an insulting description of blacks, and still more are named after apartheid-era figures who, by general agreement, hardly deserve memorializing. Some cases are murkier. The chairman of the Geographic Names Council, Tommy Ntsewa, was quoted as assailing the Western Cape town of George in a public hearing in November, asking, ''Why should we be honoring King George? For what? For colonizing us?'' If his point resonates here, it might be lost on citizens of Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, or Georgetown, the affluent District of Columbia neighborhood. That said, South Africa has so far pursued its name changes with what Mr. Friedman and other experts call remarkable restraint, especially as compared to the wholesale changes made in many other newly liberated nations. The country's two most famous cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town, have kept their names specifically to promote international business and tourism ties. In most other cases, those choosing names have shied away from lionizing liberation heroes and relied more on geographic features, like the names of rivers or mountains, that would offend neither blacks nor whites. In Pretoria, that principle has been only partly sidestepped. Tshwane is not only the name of a noted Ndebele chief, but also the African name of the Pretoria-area river where his people lived before moving in the 1800's into Zimbabwe. William Baloyi, a spokesman for the metropolitan mayor, Mr. Smangaliso, said the city intended to hold a series of public forums on the renaming issue to ensure that everyone was heard before a decision was made. ''We're not going to shove the name down the throats of the residents,'' he said. ''If they don't want it, we won't change it.''

Still, there is little doubt where city officials and many residents stand. Pretoria was founded and named in 1855 by Marthinus Pretorius, the first president of the South African Republic. But it is named after his father, Andries, the hero of the historic battle of Blood River -- so named because a river at the battlefield ran red with the blood of 3,000 Zulu warriors slain by his Voortrekker fighters. For decades, the battle's Dec. 16 anniversary was an occasion for white celebration, a sort of apartheid Thanksgiving. Under democracy, it has itself been rechristened the Day of Reconciliation. Renaming the town that commemorates the battle is, to some, a logical next step. ''I'm surprised that they've waited so long,'' said Greg Cuthbertson, an expert on British imperial history at the University of South Africa who helped prepare a scholarly report for the mayor on the names Pretoria and Tshwane. The change is nevertheless not a done deal. True experts on place names say it is not to be done lightly: ''Names are words in a language, and to change a name would be tantamount to changing a word in a language,'' said Peter E. Raper, a Pretoria scholar who served until 2002 as the chairman of a United Nations group on geographic names. ''People in other countries have to go to a lot of expense changing maps, atlases and all the rest. It really has a ripple effect.'' When the metropolitan government first proposed renaming the city in early 2003, the civic response was so intense that officials scrapped the move until experts could study the issue further. When the Pretoria-to-Tshwane proposal resurfaced at midyear, the leader of the minority Democratic Alliance here quickly gathered 16,000 signatures on petitions opposing the change. ''The business community is really up in arms because it would cost an arm and a leg to change their particulars,'' he said in a telephone interview. ''We're internationally renowned for the name Pretoria. You know, at the end of this year there's an election. And I personally think they have to show their people what they've done to be re-elected.'' The leader's name is Gert Pretorius. Yes, he allowed, he is a ''very distant'' relative of the city's founder. ''We were never very interested in that,'' he said. ''As some people say, 'What's in a name?''' URL: http://www.nytimes.com GRAPHIC: Photo: A statue of Paul Kruger, a Boer resistance leader, towers over the main square of Pretoria, founded and named in 1855 by Marthinus Pretorius. (Photo by Joao Silva for The New York Times)