The Struggle Must Continue Until Azania Attains Freedom

“We will persevere until we traverse the streets of our homeland as liberated individuals, our heads raised high.”

This statement from Robert Sobukwe, a founding member of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), carries immense importance. It serves as an invocation to African deities and encapsulates the essence of the African land.

Three decades after 1994, the name on the map is still South Africa.

The anthem reverberating in stadiums continues to weave Die Stem with Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.

The land register still reflects the 1913 Land Act.

Therefore, the march to liberation is far from complete.

Upon gaining independence, many African nations chose new names.

Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, South West Africa was renamed Namibia, Gold Coast turned into Ghana, Northern Rhodesia became Zambia, Nyasaland was renamed Malawi, Tanganyika and Zanzibar unified as Tanzania, Upper Volta transformed into Burkina Faso, Portuguese East Africa became Mozambique… and the list continues.

These name changes were not merely cosmetic; they held significant political weight.

A name asserts the rightful ownership of the nation, cutting ties with conquest.

In South Africa’s case, the negotiated settlement upheld the settlers’ legacy.

The transition in 1994 ended legal apartheid but failed to dismantle the economic and symbolic structures that sustained it.

The term South Africa dates back to the Union of South Africa in 1910, a state dominated by whites and built on the dispossession of Africans.

Keeping the name perpetuates the conqueror’s claim as the geographic standard.

Azania, the name promoted by the liberation movement to signify an African future, was disregarded.

Mandelamania and the concept of “reconciliation” made renaming politically impractical.

You cannot reconcile with conquest while retaining its identifiers.

The legal chain from 1910 to 2026 remains unbroken, now 32 years post-1994.

The beneficiaries of the 1913 Land Act still inherit lands under the same state name that enacted the Act.

Changing the name leads one to question: if this is no longer South Africa, then whose nation is it, and what basis do previous titles hold?

Retaining the name avoids that inquiry.

More alarmingly, South Africa not only kept the colonial name.

It also retained the apartheid anthem, Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, which served as a musical endorsement of crimes against humanity.

The United Nations classified apartheid as such in 1973.

In 1994, Die Stem was merged with Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.

The oppressor’s hymn was stitched to the African prayer for liberation in a chaotic act of so-called unity.

Have we, as the oppressed citizens of this land, truly forgotten the atrocities of apartheid?

The anthem seems to imply we are being asked to.

Die Stem speaks of “blue skies” and “mountains” while our people suffered in chains.

It was sung in Parliament as the Group Areas Act, the Bantu Education Act, the pass laws, and the “Sobukwe Clause” were enforced.

To sing it today is to rehearse forgetfulness.

It tells a child born in a shack that the tune of her dispossession equals the melody of her liberation.

The abhorrent system, along with all its structures, is destined for the dustbin of history.

It was built on theft.

No moral foundation can arise from stolen land.

The 1913 Land Act legally designated 87% of the country as white-owned.

This act of theft underlines the foundations of banks, mines, and the agricultural economy.

It was upheld through violence—Sharpeville, Langa, Soweto, June 16, and countless other massacres.

The police, the army, and the Bantustan system served as tools of oppression. Apartheid institutionalized racism and was more than mere prejudice; it was a state.

It determined life opportunities at birth via the Population Registration Act. Its symbols sustain consent.

A name and an anthem indicate who owns the country.

When the dispossessed sing the conqueror’s song, they are conditioned to consent to their own landlessness.

A name goes beyond mere identification.

South Africa functions as a “colonial direction” on a compass.

Die Stem stands as a musical monument to conquest.

The PAC recognized this, which is why Azania served as the counter-name, highlighting Africans as rightful owners, not subjects.

To assert “until Azania is free” acknowledges that the fight for liberation is still ongoing. Political rights without land are not freedom.

An anthem intertwined with that of the oppressor lacks dignity.

A colonial name retained after independence signifies a lack of sovereignty.

Sobukwe warned us: “Observe our actions closely, and if you detect any signs of ‘broad-mindedness’ or ‘reasonableness’ in us, denounce us as traitors to Africa.”

Maintaining South Africa and Die Stem epitomizes “broad-mindedness” with the dispossessor.

It represents “reasonableness” towards theft.

The foundations of apartheid—its laws, economics, names, and songs—must all be relegated to the dustbin of history; one cannot build Azania on the pillars of South Africa.

You cannot sing “sikhalela izwe lethu” and end with the chorus of those who appropriated it.

Thus, the march continues.

Not out of nostalgia, but because the pillars of dispossession still stand tall.

And we will not stop until we walk this land as liberated individuals, our heads held high, in a nation that carries our name.

*Xola ‘eXTee’ Tyamzashe is an APLA veteran and a notable figure in South African history and politics, recognized for his contributions to the Pan-Africanist movement. The views expressed by Xola ‘eXTee’ Tyamzashe do not necessarily reflect those of The Bulrushes