Voice interplay in the Makhado-Louis Trichardt renaming saga

Abstract

The tendency of foreigners to replace names in ueas they have conquered or those that allegedly appear unoccupied is well known and has featured highly in the history of South Africa. The Makhado-Louis Trichardt renaming saga has followcod a similar trend as it has now become a battleground for two opposing forces, the government on the one hand, and the so-called Hlanganani Chairperson's group on the other hand, with each name getting toppled by the other before the ink for its endorsement has even dried. This paper intends to demonstrate that this renaming saga has created an interplay of negating voices perpetuated by power relations between equally powerful forces. In each case, the endorsement of each name seems to be turned into a weapon that performs some sort of 'jabs', characteristic of hidden polemic where 'the other's words are treated antagonistically, and this antagonism, no less that the very topic being discussed, is what determines the author's discourse' ( Bakhtin (1984: 195}.