I want to add my voice on the issue of renaming aware that many voices will say this issue is just in the spirit of "copying" or imitating South Africa's renaming of the capital Pretoria to "Tswhane".

I nevertheless think it is long overdue.

Our country gained freedom before South Africa and suggested national reconciliation through former President Nujoma.

Maybe South Africa imitated this when they attained freedom four years later and suggested national reconciliation through President Mandela, but who cares? We needed national reconciliation anyway as we need our identity back through renaming now.

I propose that Windhoek should be renamed /Ai//gams which was its precolonial name.

(I don't rule out the possibility of Otjomuise having been the precolonial name for Windhoek, but do the two words perhaps not have the same meaning?) I propose this in the light of the peculiar situation that the Damara/Nama language, the language spoken by people who inhabited this area in pre-colonial times, is finding itself in.

The Damara/Nama language is a spoken language at the moment and not a written language due to its "clicks" that are not easy to put on paper.

This condition is a recipe for possible fear that this language could become extinct as it happened in South Africa where you now have the Nama or Khoekhoe people who cannot speak their own language.

The language was widely spoken in the whole of Southern Africa, but today it is extinct and is only spoken in Namibia (there are few speakers in Botswana, and old people in the Northern Cape).

Although we cannot talk about preserving this language due to reasons beyond our control, we can at least make sure that its existence can be acknowledged by the names in the country so that our great, great, grandchildren, one day will be able to see that there was a unique language with click sounds in Namibia and that the name /Ai//gams comes from this language.

What better way than to rename Windhoek, the capital, to /Ai//gams? We talk about preserving what is Namibian.

We spend money on preserving through the National Monuments Council, gameparks etc...

Why not preserve this language by simply naming the capital /Ai//gams.

If that is too much, maybe Pioneerspark should be named /Ai//gams.

The name Otjomuise has already been given to a suburb so it is not asking for too much considering the historical origin of the name Pioneerspark, which was where the "Old Location" was situated? Was it not there that many of our mothers and fathers were killed simply because they refused to move to Katutura? Was it not the name given to the area after the resistance of our people was crushed and a new "whites only" suburb was built? Are we still rejoicing in this victory of the Pioneers? Which Pioneers?...

If there is one place name that deserves to be changed it is Pioneerspark.

This will make our ancestors smile in their graves at least to know that although history cannot be undone, their /Ai//gams has become /Ai//gams again.

While proposing this I am aware of the cost involved in the renaming exercise and its impact on the economy.

But where there is a will, there is always a way I hope this proposal will prompt a satisfactory response from our leaders.

My aim is not tribal politicking or in the spirit of creating racial disharmony, but merely an appeal for righting the historical wrongs that sent our ancestors to early graves while they fought colonilism and robbery of their ancetral land.

J B Gaomab
Pietermaritzburg

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