IKOSA Formal Objection to the Proposed Renaming of the Republic of South Africa to Azania

African Transformation Movement Political Party

RE: Formal Objection to the Proposed Renaming of the Republic of South Africa to “Azania”

The Indigenous Kingdoms of Southern Africa NPC (IKOSA), a registered custodian body representing the ancestral rights, cultural identities, and legal interests of the First Nations of Southern Africa, hereby submits this formal letter of objection to the African Transformation Movement’s (ATM) proposal to rename the Republic of South Africa as Azania, as recently submitted to the Joint Constitutional Review Committee of Parliament (JCRC).

We note with concern that this proposal has been submitted to the JCRC and has been the subject of public discussion and political advocacy. However, after consultation with traditional authorities, cultural scholars and linguistic custodians among our member Kingdoms, we must formally and unequivocally register our objection to this renaming effort.

This communication is grounded in constitutional, historical, cultural and linguistic authority. It is respectfully offered in the spirit of Botho, with the aim of correcting an oversight which, if left unaddressed, may inadvertently misrepresent the origins and living heritage of Indigenous Peoples in this region.

1. Background and Indigenous Naming Authority

IKOSA represents and speaks for a broad collective of First Peoples and precolonial nations including the San (Barwa), Khoi, Sotho-Tswana, and Bantu-speaking communities with documented ancestral presence in what is today called South Africa. Many of these communities continue to maintain living languages, customary law systems and naming traditions predating colonial conquest.

Our objection to the name Azania is not political but principled: the name has no linguistic, territorial, or genealogical connection to the Indigenous Peoples of Southern Africa. It does not appear in our oral traditions, cosmologies, or precolonial territorial names.

It is, instead, an imported symbol drawn from North and East African coastal references and adapted into 20th-century Pan-Africanist and liberation ideologies.

While we fully respect its symbolic relevance in anti-apartheid discourse, it cannot replace names that are Indigenous, locally rooted, and constitutionally protected.

2. Recognition of “Borwa” as the Authentic Indigenous Name

By contrast, the name Borwa has deep ancestral, linguistic, and territorial continuity. It originates from the languages of the Sotho-Tswana peoples, whose lineage includes the Barwa (San), South Africa’s First Peoples. In Sotho:

• Morwa (singular) and Barwa (plural) refer to the people of South Africa, particularly the San,
• Borwa refers to the land of the Barwa, now known in the modern state as South Africa.

Thus, the widely used term Afrika Borwa is not a mere translation of “South Africa” but a living reflection of the land’s Indigenous identity.

To this end, we attach for your consideration a document titled “The Etymology of Borwa and the Sotho-Tswana Tradition of Naming”, which outlines the historical, linguistic, and cultural basis for the continued recognition of Borwa as the ancestral name for this territory. It demonstrates that Borwa is both a geographic designation and an identity rooted in local language systems that have survived dispossession and marginalisation. It is a living reflection of the people who inhabited this land long before colonial conquest.

The term Afrika Borwa carries deep ancestral and linguistic significance that Azania does not, and cannot, replicate.

3. Legal and Constitutional Considerations

Our attached Legal Position Paper further expands on the following key grounds:

• Indigenous Naming Rights: Section 31 of the Constitution affirms the right of cultural, religious, and linguistic communities to practice and preserve their heritage. Names such as Borwa fall within this protection.
• Territorial Integrity: The term Borwa refers to an ancient Indigenous region extending across what is now South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, etc. Replacing it without free, prior, and informed consent violates Indigenous sovereignty and international customary law as recognised under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
• Authenticity in Decolonisation: A decolonial project that substitutes one externally derived name (South Africa) with another (Azania) not rooted in the land’s First Peoples undermines the very goals of liberation. Genuine decolonisation must restore original names; not symbolic imports disconnected from the land’s ancestral memory.

4. Our Request to the African Transformation Movement

Your proposal, however well intended, may therefore be interpreted as ill-informed or inadvertently offensive to Indigenous communities whose living identity is rooted in Borwa as a name, a place, and a worldview. In this regard, IKOSA respectfully requests that the African Transformation Movement:

1. Withdraws its proposal to rename the Republic of South Africa to “Azania” and publicly acknowledges the concerns of Indigenous Peoples and their cultural institutions.
2. Publicly clarify that no offence was intended and affirm that while ATM believes South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in diversity, the primary and original claim to belonging rests with its Indigenous Peoples, whose languages and naming systems are valid, living, and protected under the Constitution.
3. Engages directly with Indigenous Kingdoms and First Nation structures in the event of any future initiatives involving cultural symbols, national identity, or constitutional change.
4. Supports an inclusive national dialogue on the recognition of Indigenous territorial identities such as Borwa, within the framework of federalisation and restorative justice.

5. Conclusion

This objection is submitted not in hostility but in the spirit of Botho-Ubuntu, dignity and mutual respect and in full recognition of the contributions that various liberation movements, including the ATM, have made and continue make to the transformation of our society.

However, as Indigenous custodians of this land, we are bound by duty to ensure that our cultural inheritance is not overwritten or symbolically displaced under the banner of postcolonial reinvention.

While the name Azania held symbolic value during the anti-apartheid struggle, it is not indigenous to this region. It has no linguistic, genealogical or territorial connection to the First Peoples of Southern Africa.

Its adoption as the official name of the country would risk erasing ancient identities, languages and naming systems particularly those of the Barwa (San) and the broader Sotho-Tswana heritage, whose names for this land remain in active use today.

The time has come to return to our own names those spoken by our ancestors, inherited from our soil, and safeguarded through our living languages.

The principle of “nothing about us, without us” must apply. Any national naming initiative must begin with those who first named this land and whose descendants continue to do so.

We remain open to principled dialogue and look forward to working alongside ATM and other stakeholders in shaping a South Africa that fully honours its Indigenous origins and living heritage.

Yours sincerely,

Morena Nkokoto II (Mabusa Sebobane)

Co-founder & Executive Director: Corporate Affairs
Indigenous Kingdoms of Southern Africa (IKOSA)

Email: sebobam@ikosa.africa | Website: www.ikosa.africa

Attachments:

1. Legal Position Paper: IKOSA’s Position on the Proposed Renaming of the Republic of South Africa to “Azania”
2. Cultural-Linguistic Note: The Etymology of Borwa and the Sotho-Tswana Tradition of Naming