The magic and majesty of Kruger won’t disappear because it is called something else.
There’s thoughtful anguish in the words of Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”… and they bear thinking about today as there is a clamour to rename the Kruger National Park.
If it is called “Skukuza” – as a politician from the EFF in Mpumalanga has proposed – will the memories recalled by travel expert Michael Catterson, in our story today, fail to exist?
Kruger’s magic isn’t in the name
Those memories of a family holiday in the park, “watching monkeys, honey badgers and hyenas patrol the fence”.
No, we would like to suggest, they won’t, because the magic and majesty of Kruger won’t disappear because it is called something else.
Ironically, for the historically challenged EFF man who wanted to rid the province of the trappings of “oppression”, Skukuza (he who sweeps away) was the Xitsonga name given to James Stevenson-Hamilton, the park’s first warden.
He swept away poachers, but he was also seen as sweeping away local communities to establish the reserve… which is somewhat oppressive, we would say.
SA’s shuffled priorities
While righting the wrongs of the past is important — and sticking it to the Afrikaner is foremost in the minds of our populist politicians — we can’t help but wonder if pushing for a name change is inversely proportional to one’s success, either as a political party or a province.
The EFF is hardly about to become our national government, and Mpumalanga is not exactly the country’s top-performing province.
It is also evident that there are plenty of other societal problems our political hotair producers could be busying themselves with.
Kruger is internationally known and is the jewel in SA’s tourism crown. Tourism creates jobs as well as puts food on thousands of tables.
You fiddle with that economic reality at your peril.
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