A fierce row has erupted in South Africa over the renaming of the historic town of Graaff-Reinet, a place closely associated with Afrikaner heritage.
Authorities moved to rename the nearly 250-year-old town after anti-apartheid leader Robert Sobukwe, triggering protests, petitions and legal challenges from residents.
Opponents say the move risks erasing cultural and historical identity, while supporters argue it is part of a broader effort to address colonial-era legacies and recognise liberation figures.
The dispute has exposed deep divisions over history, identity and transformation in post-apartheid South Africa.
#southafrica #politics #history #africa #wion
About Channel:
WION The World is One News examines global issues with in-depth analysis. We provide much more than the news of the day. Our aim is to empower people to explore their world. With our Global headquarters in New Delhi, we bring you news on the hour, by the hour. We deliver information that is not biased. We are journalists who are neutral to the core and non-partisan when it comes to world politics. People are tired of biased reportage and we stand for a globalized united world. So for us, the World is truly One.
Please keep discussions on this channel clean and respectful and refrain from using racist or sexist slurs and personal insults.
Subscribe to our channel at
Check out our website:
Join our WhatsApp Channel:
Connect with us on our social media handles:
Facebook:
Twitter:
Instagram:
Follow us on Google News for the latest updates
Zee News:-
Zee Business:-
DNA India:-
WION:
Zee News Apps:
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/8c/04/8c0478a5-02e7-46e0-beb8-0fa04e7244e9/tougaloo-nine.png?w=480&resize=480,240&ssl=1 "Nine Black College Students Were Arrested in 1961 for Reading at a Segregated Public Library. Their Contributions to the Civil Rights Movement Have Long Been Overlooked")
😂😂South Africa 😂😂Hai this place this ppl
If whites don't want to stay in south africa, they must go to AmericaTrump wants them
The terrorist group aka anc cannot create or build towns or cities besides the shit huts they used to stay in now all they can do is rename what we created…
There’s only Dutchmaners from Netherlands known as Dutch identity theft is a crime
Dutchman can’t call himself Afrikan that’s identity theft
ANC can't build anything. Only claim what others build as their own. And oh by the way. The bantu also are settlers in South Africa and their expansion was by fare more bloody.
Viva orania viva cape independence free from
ANC looters and thugs
Oh this pathetic mainstream media, only know how to misinform for the sake of evil agendas. Communists. Its not only afrikaners but most sound minded South Africans who has a problem with a tyranical racist ANC led government that wants to rename major towns/city in South Africa while the country collapses due to the ANC's corruption and racists laws, specially against white minority. How can you spend millions to rename something you didn't build while so many are dying due to the same problems you as a governement caused??
ANC terrorists must be overthrown and prosecuted!!
Once again, we have Marxist-inspired black washing!!!!!
The names/heritage have nothing to do with apartheid or oppression and all that. It can present as symbols of development.
Graaff-Reinet was founded 162 years before apartheid. The generation that founded and built Graaff-Reinet was long gone before apartheid was even invented by the NP. I'm not surprised by the name change as the ANC is corrupt and unethical – reaping where they don't sow.
Who gives a fuc what a town is called. The country is on its knees. They complain about unemployment yet they want more money to be spent. Strange they have time to dance in the street but no time to go get a job
Rename it and destroy it is the ANC way. There were no towns and cities in SA until 300 years ago. ANC is inventing history. While the ANC rename sewerage runs on the streets, water pipes dry up, billions is stolen.
Renaming is achievable, building something is an entirely different game.
We built this country. Theres no piece of evidence that shows the boers working under the sun for a small wage. So yeah we can name whatever we want whenever we want. ROBERT SIBUKWE‼️ less go🎉
They need to learn African languages, like any migrant in a host country.
Is like white people crying that india should not name places by indian icons
Anc wastes so much time and money on pointless things
Who was Graaf Reinet? Some Dutch colonialist ?
The is no need for the name change
Why???
Its not just about the name change. While kids are living in poverty the government spens money on useless crap like this. They are leeching the country dry while they live in opulence. The infrastructure is crumbling, hospitals are without resources, schools are understaffed crime zones and utilities are non existent, yet the government continues to blame a long dead system that died 3 decades ago.
It's wrong to remove there name that has been there for a long time. It's there history and cultural thing.
Colonial names must be changed, even South Africa itself as a country must be renamed
If he's the son of the town and he's a hero then his name could be placed somewhere in the town i.e main road…town hall…a major public place blah blah blah…his name should never be used to divide people…
Wrong headline. It's "Afrikaans speaking people sparks backlash" That includes other races/peoples as well, not just Afrikaners.
As more than eighty percent of the propulsion in the town speak Afrikaans.
Build a new town and name it after whoever you like—but don’t take a 300-year-old town and try to rewrite its identity.
Changing names not giving us jobs 😊😊😊
The ANC should build new town and name them after their heros
Okay there's literally unemployment to deal with rather
Outrageous. ANC cannot run the country, but they can attack other people’s history (and be corrupt and incompetent)
Why don't the South African government learn something from their BRICS partner, Russia: Respect the past, the history of the country, whether the current government agrees with it or not and leave monuments and past legacy alone. Sure, name whatever you create yourself.
Just call it boogey-boogey-bongo-shaballe
The ANC has not built anything since they took power and 'governed' the country. They're useless. Our military is useless, no border security at all. Our police force is useless. Our railway network has been destroyed. They haven't built a single university in the past 32 years. I haven't seen a single school built in my 25 years of life. There's no development at all. We're useless as a country. All they do is steal and erase the history of people who actually made our country what it is today
Erase it then burn it with fite
Good job South Africa. Time to rename Kruger Park and Rand
They keep saying 'colonial' 🙄 They're settlers. Huge difference. They chose to stay and build the country as we now know it. Colonizers send resources back to their home countries. Like England and France. Afrikaaners are South Africans who are descendents of Dutch. But they never sent resources to Holland. They must stop using that term. No one calls Americans colonizers, they too settled there, built the country and formed their own identity and culture. Just like Afrikaaners
All towns that remind people of colonial times or oppression should be renamed. It's disgusting to think people should accept it
AI Overview
Colonial Europeans in South Africa and across the continent systematically imposed their own monuments while erasing local histories to establish territorial control and create a false "terra nullius" illusion
. This process involved removing traces of African leadership and replacing them with statues of imperialists like Cecil Rhodes and monarchs such as Queen Victoria.
European Heritage Hub +1
Erasure of Heritage: Colonial powers, including British and Belgian, demolished or ignored existing African structures, replacing them with monuments honoring European engineers, explorers, and rulers.
Monumental Symbolism: Statues of individuals like Cecil Rhodes, who represented brutal colonial exploitation, were erected in public spaces as part of a, "…new landscape and new associated public memory…" that excluded the history of indigenous populations.
Contestations: Recent movements, such as "Rhodes Must Fall," have heavily contested these remaining, "…colonial relics [that] can be heavy with symbolism and a history that was brutal to Africans," leading to the removal of several, like the 112-year-old statue of Queen Victoria in Port Elizabeth.
Looting of Culture: Alongside physical structures, thousands of African cultural artifacts, such as the Benin Bronzes, were stolen and are now housed in European museums, according to reports in Al Jazeera and Facebook.
European Heritage Hub +4
This systematic destruction and replacement of monuments served as a tool for cementing, "…the socio-economic, political, and cultural powers," of European regimes, says a study from
South Africa does not even have enough money to upkeep their roads, Hospitals and Governmental Facilities… They step on their own people with no regard of humanity… They want to create division!!
South Africans rename shi but don't update the corresponding names on google maps !!! Whoever built it should have the right to name it
Don't worry people celebrating renaming and erasing of culture , you too will eventually have everything erased due to population shifts , India will have a lot of Bangladesh and Pakistani coming in and becoming majorities in your country , then they will rename your historical places. Same with South Africa , they are celebrating the rename of Afrikaner towns but 20 – 30 years from now there will be more foreigners from Zimbabwe , Namibia , Nigeria ect and their kids will become the majority and begin renaming / changing the ANC history and Zulu , Xhosa culture. The Chinese are currently erasing ethnic minorities language by forcing them to only learn Mandarin – "China approves 'ethnic unity' law requiring minorities to learn Mandarin" look it up. Why the F can't people just leave peaceful law obeying people alone. I for one stand on the opinion , never force people to conform to something they don't agree to. Graaff – Reinet before European settlement in 1786, the Graaff-Reinet greater area not just the town was known to the indigenous Khoi people as Camdeboo (or !Xamdubu), a Khoi word meaning "green pool" or "green hippo pool". The area was primarily inhabited by Khoisan nomadic farmers, rather than Bantu-speaking groups, which did not widely occupy this specific region of the Great Karoo before.
The greater area was known as Camdeboo, a vast region stretching between the Sneeuberg mountains and the Sundays River, inhabited by the Khoekhoe people. They key difference between renaming it from Xamdubu to Graaff- Reinnet and Robert Sobukwe is that people named a place they built whereas the others are renaming a place they haven't built. The current Afrikaans Speaking demographics is 72% that includes all ethnic backgrounds in the area , not just white like perceived from journalists and at least 80 % don't want it renamed ( A Survey study conducted by Professor Ronnie Donaldson from Stellenbosch University found that 83.6% of residents interviewed were against changing the name.)
Rather than forcing renaming of places to attack minorities rather do a survey and have the actual people living in the place vote locally on name change or not – ( Voter turnout requirement should be around 65% of the people in said place , if less then that means they aren't interested in the renaming , as simple as that ). … This is just another reason to argue for a new decentralized constitutional federal representative democratic government instead of the current centralized one. Power is divided between national and state governments, with the federal government split into three branches—legislative, executive, and judicial—using a system of checks and balances. Citizens elect officials to represent them at federal, state, and local levels.
Because they have never created anything to name they have to rename an already existing town , road, building .
It must b changed ….away from settlers in with origionals
Where is the Netherlands government to console them?
Stupid thinking 😭😭😭🙈🙈🙈the ANC is oppressing US
Tell the Morons in ANC south africa to name things they have built. They steal and break everything that was built by colonialist and apartheid goverments. What have they built in 30 years nothing. That is why they rename stuff that was built before 1994. As they cant name stuff they built because they havent built anything. All they can do is steal and break.
"What culture"
"Um, yknow, the one you keep erasing? 🤔"