Azania

The notes below based on the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azania.

Azania is the name that has been applied to various parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In Roman times -- and perhaps earlier -- the name referred to a portion of the Southeast African coast south of the Horn of Africa,[1] extending south perhaps as far as modern Tanzania. In the late 20th century, the term was used in place of "South Africa" by some opponents of the white-minority rule of that country.

Origin of name

The earliest attestations for the name Azania do not explain it. John Hilton alludes to a number of etymologies proposed in the nineteenth century that claimed the name was derived from an Arabic or Persian word referring to the dark-skinned inhabitants of Africa, which he dismisses as examples of the colonial mindset of that period.

More recently, G.W.B. Huntingford offered two suggestions for the origin of the word. The first was from the Arabic `ajam ("foreigner, non-Arab"). The second, which he favors, comes from the Greek azainein ("to dry, parch").

Ancient Azania

Pliny the Elder mentions an "Azanian Sea" (N.H. 6.34) that began around the emporium of Adulis and stretched around the south coast of Africa. The slightly later Periplus of the Erythraean Sea offers more details about Azania (chapters 15,16,18). From chapter 15 of the Periplus, Huntingford identifies Azania proper with the area south of modern day Somalia (the "Lesser and Greater Bluffs", the "Lesser and Greater Strands", and the "Seven Courses").[2] However, chapter 16 clearly describes Rhapta, located south of the Puralean Islands at the end of the Seven Courses of Azania, as the "southernmost market of Azania." Modern identifications of Rhapta place it on the coasts of modern-day Tanzania -- indicating that Azania referred to perhaps an area identical to the later Arab Zanj. Professor Chami has found archaeological evidence indicating that Rhapta was probably located near the mouth of the Rufiji River. Azania was known to the Chinese as 澤散 Zésàn by the 3rd century CE.[3]

Later writers who mention Azania include Claudius Ptolemy and Cosmas Indicopleustes. Cosmas records the fact that in his time Azania was under the control of Axum, and that gold was bartered for butchered beef.

Use of Azania in South Africa

The first mention of the name Azania with a South African connection appeared in the 1930s archaeological reports of excavations at Mapungubwe in the northern Transvaal. The skeletal remains were referred to as "ancient Azanians" meaning they were probably Cushitic peoples who had filtered down the Great Rift Valley from Ethiopia and East Africa. Zionist Church movements in South Africa say that unvocalized Hebrew for Zion is ZN (which is not in fact true; see Zion), as is unvocalised Azania.[citation needed]

Azania in a political South African context appeared again in 1958, when the name was proposed as a replacement name for South Africa, at the All-African Peoples' Conference hosted in Accra, Ghana by Kwame Nkrumah - an idea similar to Nkrumah shortly before changing his own country's colonial name ("Gold Coast") and replacing it by that of the Medieval Ghana Empire.

The modern use of Azania as an alternative name for South Africa among revolutionary Black African nationalists only began to become popular in 1979, however, appearing in the names of groups such as the Azanian People's Organisation, the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania and the Socialist Party of Azania.

Converesely, however, the African National Congress had always been extremely dismissive of the name, associating it with colonialism. ANC rejection of the name and sticking to the usage of "South Africa" reflected its fierce rivalry, throughout the years of the anti-Apartheid struggle, with the Pan Africanist Congress which had split from the ANC.

At the time of the 1994 multi-racial elections, some proposed "Azania" as an alternative official name for the country, but this never received widespread support - reflecting the overwhelming ANC electoral victory and the PAC's marginalization.

In the period when Apartheid South Africa had diplomatic relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan, the People's Republic of China officially apparently referred to South Africa as "Azania".

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