Thursday, May 26, 2005
"Little Monkey"?
Something that probably didnt rattle a lot of people´s world this week: Pretoria, South Africa got a new name.
The city was originally founded by immigrant Boers (white Africans coming from the Cape) who named it after their leader Andries Pretorius, but the new authorities in South Africa have in their wisdom decided that, apparently, places named for white people are somehow "divisive" or "racist", so instead they are now calling the city Tshwane, naming it after the son of an immigrant Ndebele (negro African coming from Zululand) chief instead.
Of cours, some people couldnt see how switching from naming a city after a white guy to naming it after a black guy made it that much less "divisive", so instead the authorities cooked up a story about how Tshwane supposedly means "we are the same":
There is one problem with that neat story - it isnt true:
So, there you have it: one of the largest cities in South Africa is now to be known as "Little Ape". As one South African put it:
I think that about says it all...
Update:
I just thought Id throw in that I do know that Andries Pretorius wasnt exactly your nice guy next door. The Boers had been molded by two and a half centuries of border warfare (and the recurring mutual massacres that entails) with negro and hottentot tribes, and had little inhibition against enslaving these.
Update II:
While Im at it, I might as well clarify my stance on "natives", "africans", "immigrants" etc. You may have wondered why I choose to call both Boers and Ndebele "immigrants", given that we normally think of Africa being inhabited by people like the Ndebele (ie negros). This has led to the equation negro=african. That is not true, though. Likewise, negro is not just negro.
The Boers WERE immigrants to South Africa, arriving from the very early 1600s in the Cape, where they found a population of Khoi/hottentots. The hottentots, along with the pygmies, are the original population of South, East and Central Africa.
What we normally view as Africans/Negros are mainly the Bantu, a group of people that began expanding from what is today Nigeria when the Roman Empire was at its highest. Over the following centuries, they invaded and took over more and more land until the original population was left only in todays Namibia, Botswana and western South Africa, and the Bantu expansion was only temporarily stopped by the intrusion of the Boers in the 1800s. With de-colonisation and the fall of white minority rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, that expansion has resumed. The renaming of Pretoria as Tshwane is only a small part of this. Others are the massacres of pygmies by Bantu in the Congo and the eviction of Bushmen from their reserve in Botswana.
If the Bantu were white, we´d call it "racism" or "imperialism" and critisize it, but since they arent we just shut up and let it happen.
OK, rant over. Im going to shut up now.
Update III
It occurred to me that I didnt deal with the concept of "natives" as I said I would. I can sum it up in a few words: its bull. Various groups use the claim of being native to any particular piece of land as a front for what it really is: a grab into your pocket to get your money.
Fact remains that the only piece of land where we actually stem from is Africa - all people migrated out from there. In short:
Im probably going to write more on this another time. Right now, Im off to bed.
Henrik
The city was originally founded by immigrant Boers (white Africans coming from the Cape) who named it after their leader Andries Pretorius, but the new authorities in South Africa have in their wisdom decided that, apparently, places named for white people are somehow "divisive" or "racist", so instead they are now calling the city Tshwane, naming it after the son of an immigrant Ndebele (negro African coming from Zululand) chief instead.
Of cours, some people couldnt see how switching from naming a city after a white guy to naming it after a black guy made it that much less "divisive", so instead the authorities cooked up a story about how Tshwane supposedly means "we are the same":
According to the City of Tshwane website, Tshwane was the name of the son of an
African chief who settled in the area hundreds of years ago; and is also a word
that means "we are the same" or "we are one because we live together".
There is one problem with that neat story - it isnt true:
The first were Nguni-speakers, known as the Ndebele who named the place Tshwane, which means Little Ape.
So, there you have it: one of the largest cities in South Africa is now to be known as "Little Ape". As one South African put it:
This morning I drove past a newspaper poster proclaiming that Pretoria will now be known as Tswane. Who the fuck wants to live in Tswane? The CBD however will still be known as Pretoria. A bit confusing I think... I'm so sick and tired of overpaid 'politicians' in government bitching and moaning about stupid shit like city names. I'm extremely pleased to see that our country has time and money to spend on something as fucking retarded as changing 'racist boer inspired' city names to more ethnic sounding meaningless names that have ZERO relevance to the original founders of the city. JESUS CHRIST! We have AIDS, raped babies, hungry people, illegal aliens, escalating petrol and property prices, unemployment, lack of education, cyclists getting shot, pigfuckers cutting me off on the highway and god knows what else... I don't think changing city names should be on our list of priorities for the next 100 years.
PS- MS Word doesn't even see 'Tswane' as a real word...
I think that about says it all...
Update:
I just thought Id throw in that I do know that Andries Pretorius wasnt exactly your nice guy next door. The Boers had been molded by two and a half centuries of border warfare (and the recurring mutual massacres that entails) with negro and hottentot tribes, and had little inhibition against enslaving these.
Update II:
While Im at it, I might as well clarify my stance on "natives", "africans", "immigrants" etc. You may have wondered why I choose to call both Boers and Ndebele "immigrants", given that we normally think of Africa being inhabited by people like the Ndebele (ie negros). This has led to the equation negro=african. That is not true, though. Likewise, negro is not just negro.
The Boers WERE immigrants to South Africa, arriving from the very early 1600s in the Cape, where they found a population of Khoi/hottentots. The hottentots, along with the pygmies, are the original population of South, East and Central Africa.
What we normally view as Africans/Negros are mainly the Bantu, a group of people that began expanding from what is today Nigeria when the Roman Empire was at its highest. Over the following centuries, they invaded and took over more and more land until the original population was left only in todays Namibia, Botswana and western South Africa, and the Bantu expansion was only temporarily stopped by the intrusion of the Boers in the 1800s. With de-colonisation and the fall of white minority rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, that expansion has resumed. The renaming of Pretoria as Tshwane is only a small part of this. Others are the massacres of pygmies by Bantu in the Congo and the eviction of Bushmen from their reserve in Botswana.
If the Bantu were white, we´d call it "racism" or "imperialism" and critisize it, but since they arent we just shut up and let it happen.
OK, rant over. Im going to shut up now.
Update III
It occurred to me that I didnt deal with the concept of "natives" as I said I would. I can sum it up in a few words: its bull. Various groups use the claim of being native to any particular piece of land as a front for what it really is: a grab into your pocket to get your money.
Fact remains that the only piece of land where we actually stem from is Africa - all people migrated out from there. In short:
WE ARE ALL AFRICANS
Im probably going to write more on this another time. Right now, Im off to bed.
Henrik
# posted by Henrik @ 11:53 AM 
