A new think tank and advocacy group is calling on South Africans to consider changing the name of the country. Launched by four prominent academics and activists, Vuka Azania wishes to position itself as a unifier of liberation ideals. As the group’s name suggests, Azania is their preferred alternative to South Africa, reviving the sentiments adopted by liberation movements during apartheid.
Reverend Dr Allan Boesak, senior counsel Dr Muzi Sikhakhane, Professor Isaac Shai and Arthur Fraser launched the movement in Sandton on Friday. Sikhakhane said Vuka Azania was not a political party and stressed there were “varied paths to agitating for change” in South Africa. Boesak argued that the country’s colonial history had led to a “spiritual degradation of the African people” that underpinned South Africa’s social ills.
“Knowledge production remains geocentric and colonial in character while African knowledge systems and languages remain marginalised, and are not the language of economy or power. “Secular colonialism, racism and racial capitalism continue to inflict on black people, not merely an injustice to be corrected in the future, but a form of ongoing violence that demands an immediate and drastic response. “We declare that this country must be renamed Azania.
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The colonial name South Africa cannot carry the full memory, pain, struggle and destiny of the indigenous people. “A liberated people must name themselves if dignity is to be restored. Vuka Azania stands for, and will advocate for, a truly decolonised post-colonial constitution that confronts the history of conquest,” said Boesak.
A 1992 research paper written by Professor John Hilton of the then University of Natal detailsseveral possible etymological sourcesof the word Azania. Early uses of the word include a 2000-year-old Greek reference to north-east Africa, as well as an ancient region of Greece, among others.
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