‘Apartheid erasure’: ActionSA complains about people calling it ‘ASA’

Political party ActionSA has angrily condemned how some people refer to it as ‘ASA’.

Member of Parliament, Lerato Ngobeni spoke strongly against those who are “hellbent” on doing this, saying they have ill intentions.

She also drew on similarities between doing this and the renaming of black people during the colonial and Apartheid eras.

We are ActionSA, not ASA!

This misnaming of the party “is not merely a slip of the tongue”, but a “willful disregard for the identity we have chosen to define ourselves by and a reminder of the legacy of apartheid erasure”, Ngobeni said in a statement.

“ActionSA unequivocally condemns the continued, and deliberate, misnaming of our party as ASA.

“Repeatedly, we have made it abundantly clear: we are ActionSA, not ASA.”

She said ASA is an abbreviation belonging to Athletics South Africa alone in our country, and deliberately misappropriating it undermines both the sporting body and the political party.

She said her registered political party is named ActionSA on all platforms and voting ballots.

Like the ‘erasure of African identity’

“Lest we forget that renaming black people by assigning so-called Christian or English names at schools, churches, and workplaces, was a practice rooted in colonialism and apartheid tools of racial domination and erasure of African identity,” Ngobeni added.

“Our names were deemed either too difficult to pronounce or were considered inappropriate by European standards.

“The practice served to strip our forebears of their cultural identity and conform them to foreign and demeaning norms by oppressive colonial and apartheid regimes.”

For this reason, Ngobeni believes the deliberate misnaming of ActionSA is more than just an inconvenience.

“It echoes the painful legacy of our country’s past, where black people were routinely stripped of our given names and identities under colonial and apartheid regimes.

“The imposition of so-called Christian or English names in schools, churches, and workplaces was a tool of domination—an attempt to erase African identities deemed ‘too difficult’ to pronounce or ‘inappropriate’ by Western standards.”

Ngobeni said people should not forget how Rolihlahla Mandela became Nelson Mandela, Bantu Biko became Steve Biko and Mpilo Tutu became Desmond Tutu.

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ActionSA promises ‘utmost resistance’ if misnaming continues

“It is high time that South Africans everywhere be it on social media or mainstream understand that whether knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally, or unintentionally, for convenience or out of whim, calling us anything other than ActionSA is against our will.”

Ngobeni said ActionSA would continue to meet the misnaming of the party “with the utmost resistance”.

“Our name is more than a title; it represents the principles and vision of a South Africa where all people are treated with respect and dignity; are seen, and called by their rightful and chosen names.”

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ActionSA’s previous identity dilemma

In 2020, ActionSA’s registration as a political party had at first been rejected by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).

A year before the 2021 government elections, the party’s logo was too similar to the Party of Action (POA).

It had to adhere to the IEC’s recommendations to change its logo.

Leader Herman Mashaba revealed at the time the bulk of the party’s supporters had approved the move to change the logo.