A jacaranda, by any other name, would still smell as sweet?

Pretoria mayor, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, has reportedly declared that South Africa’s capital city will be re-named Tshwane by the end of 2012, no matter the cost to the city, nor the opposition to the move.

This statement adds significant fuel to an already fiery debate in the city, not to mention nationally around the controversial re-naming of South Africa’s landmarks to reflect its changed historical heritage.

Says Ramokgopa:

We are going to be resolute and stubborn in ensuring that our history is recorded correctly because our brave heroes paid the ultimate price.

He went on to say that he did not care about what the media reported about the costs related to the name changes as no amount of money was too much for “recording history correctly”.

Changing the name of a city, a landmark or even just a street can be an uphill battle in modern South Africa. For every well-received name change (Cape Town’s Eastern Boulevard was changed to Helen Suzman Boulevard a few weeks ago, and went off without a peep) there is another that is bogged down in historical mud-slinging, cultural in-fighting and political red tape, and perhaps none more so than the proposed name-change of national capital, Pretoria, to Tshwane.

[Source: Times LIVE]