We are celebrating our heritage at this time of the year ,we need to look at the part of our heritage that was wiped out by the colonialist,the names of our rivers,mountains,valleys,towns etc.It is an indictment against the democratic government that most of our spaces in the country still bear colonial names

the colonialists came here and changed the names of our places,in an attempt to alienate us the natives from the land while asserting themselves as owners of this territory.The biggest problem we face in this regard currently is that we find the descendants of the colonialists fighting very hard to preserve these colonial names and they are doing all they can to stifle any attempt by the government to try and deal with this.It took the government 21 years to finally rename Grahamstown ,yet we all know historically it was named after a murder who orchestrated a genocide against the Xhosa/Khoisan people of the Eastern Cape.

I think the best way to deal with this is by setting up a commission like the Ntlapo commission (which was establish to set out which royal houses are the rightful ones to take charge of their people and root out the confusion that was created by colonialist of splitting up the kingdoms.This was determined based on facts not on preference and if anyone felt hard done they could challenge the findings based on facts that proves their status as a kingdom is genuine).We need such a commission even on this matter ,comprising of historians that will prove for example how and when a colonial name started being in use and what is the indigenous name of that place that we must go back to using .Then the government should be obligated to implement these findings of this commission ,anyone who feels aggrieved by the findings must prove his/her case based on evidence that the name in use currently was NOT imposed by the successive colonial powers and that aggrieved party cant just argue that they would "love" to retain these colonial names purely based on preference. That's the best way to celebrate our heritage and preserve it for generations to come.
examples of places that have colonial names instead of their indigenous names:

Drakensberg Mountains -Ntaba zoKhahlamba
Vaal River -Lekoa
Orange River-Senqu/Gqili
Tugela River-Thukela
Fish River -Nqweba
Nahoon River -Nxarhuni
Baffalo River -iQonce
Kowie River -iQhoyi