Programme Director,
Uthungulu District Municipality Mayor: Cllr Mchunu,
Umhlathuze Local Municipality Mayor: Cllr Mbatha,
All Mayors, Councillors and Amakhosi presen,t
SAGNC Chairperson: Adv. Sizani,
KZNPGC Chairperson Mr Mbatha and all Council Members present,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Good morning and compliments of the New Year.
We are gathered here today to fulfil one of the mandates of this democratic government which is to rid our society of inequality that besieged us for many years for the benefit of our current and future generations.
Ladies and gentlemen, the process of naming and renaming of buildings, places and geographic places should be viewed in the context of facilitating the promotion of a common national identity, social cohesion and national healing.
Those who have been doubting this process since it commenced in 1994 should know by now that as government we have an obligation to the people of this country to respond to the concrete situation that faced them and inculcate a human rights culture, a system of justice and equality and a better life in a land that belongs to all who live in it. Clearly, this land must reflect the demographics of its population.
At this point let me extend our sincere gratitude to the National Department of Arts and Culture for identifying the need for this workshop. We are optimistic that the knowledge that we are going to gain from this process will go a long way towards creating awareness of the importance of Geographical Naming Process. It will also assist the province to fast-track the geographical naming standardisation process and most importantly on how it should be implemented.
Ladies and gentlemen, the renaming of place names is a world phenomenon. Humans have always attached labels or names to their immediate environment in order to assign meaning and give recognition. However, in the South African context name change is one element of an integrated set of policy initiatives to effect fundamental transformation towards the confirmation and celebration of our uniqueness and our diversity.
As I have indicated earlier, the name change should therefore be seen as an integral part of the overall transformation of the South African heritage landscape broadly. In the past, thousands of geographical names were imposed on us by the colonial powers who governed South Africa and portions of it.
They did this without regard to the pre-existing names, let alone the sensibilities of the indigenous people, who in most instances continued to use the original names. There are also numerous instances where colonial administrators misheard indigenous names, but notwithstanding imposed their misconstruction of those names.
There are some places that were renamed to celebrate the military victories on White Settlers over African armies, some to celebrate colonial governors and soldiers.
Programme Director, what makes this process even more significant to us is that KwaZulu-Natal is a multicultural and multilingual province where you often find places with more than one name.
Therefore, the standardisation of geographical names seeks to achieve, among other things, to rectify the historical perspective of geographical names, correct spelling mistakes and to eradicate the geographical names duplication. Of critical importance, is to affirm the history and identity of the province.
Standardisation is also necessary for the purposes of communications, censuses, elections, search and rescue operations and tourism. I therefore want to urge all of us to begin to take the work of the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Geographic Naming Council (KZNPGNC) seriously and cooperate with them. Those who prepare maps and gazetteers of geographical names, both nationally and internationally, rely heavily on the KZNPGNC to provide
them with standardised names.
Whilst outlining the role of the KZNPGNC, I must indicate that this important institution derives its mandate from the Geographical Place Names Act of 1998 which makes provision for the renaming of geographical names and features. This Act encourages the greater community involvement in the renaming of place names and features hence we have deemed it necessary to invite all of you in this gathering so that we understand clearly our obligations in the entire process.
Programme Director, I believe that when we leave this room tomorrow no one in future will accuse the council of unilaterally renaming places because you will have been empowered on how to participate in this process. This will also spare us of the unnecessary litigations that we have seen in the past because some of us did not understand how the process of renaming a particular place was arrived at.
I am indeed pleased that going forward, we will be singing from the same hymn book on the renaming of geographical names. When we learn that a particular place has been renamed we will know exactly what criteria was followed. However, our main focus is on the names of places that are either wrongly spelled, appear in more than one place, offensive or discriminatory and that are not registered.
Of paramount importance, is to continue to make the point that the standardisation of geographical names is an integral part of nation building and promotion of social cohesion.
I therefore want to urge all of us that from this gathering we must emerge with a common consensus that the standardisation of geographical names is about affirming our common heritage, our shared destiny, our common nationhood and identity.
When we go back to our constituencies, we must spread the message that the standardisation of geographical names is a democratic process that seeks to undo the wrongs of the past, thus pave the way towards a shared future.
However, for the province of KwaZulu-Natal to succeed in this important task, the collaboration between the Department of Arts and Culture, COGTA and Transport is critical. As the MEC responsible for Arts and Culture, I will engage my counterparts at a cabinet level to expedite the process of standardisation of geographic names.
Whilst the Department of Transport is critical in the implementation of approved and gazetted names on the road sign boards, COGTA is key in encouraging cooperation of the municipalities.
Programme Director, the role of municipalities cannot be overemphasised in this process since they provide support in the establishment of District Geographical Names Committees. I want to urge all the District municipalities and the Houses of Traditional Leaders to own these District Committees and assist during the public hearings and awareness campaigns.
Programme Director, I want to conclude by highlighting some of the challenges we are facing as a province in this whole process. Firstly, KwaZulu-Natal has a multitude of names that are wrongly spelt and as a result we spend a lot of time on correcting such names and I am optimistic that in our deliberations, we will come up with strategies of how to overcome this challenge.
Secondly, there are a number of places that still need to be renamed but a thorough research and consultations should be conducted through public hearings. Again, this workshop must assist us on how we can fast-track this process. Lastly, the changing of the sign boards in the province has been going at a snail’s pace. I believe that after this workshop, all these challenges will be put behind us.
Finally, I want to reiterate that the standardisation of the geographical names is part of the transformation agenda of our democratic government. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to put our shoulders to the wheel and own this process.
Let me take this opportunity to wish you successful and fruitful deliberations.
