September 30, 2007

CHANGING the names of places and events to suit the politics of the moment does little except confuse people and deny the reality of history.

Most countries understand that history is history, warts and all. Changing names will not change the past.

A quarter of the world was once British and Bermuda was a very early British colony. Changing place names will not change our past.

Besides, often people do not readily accept name changes. As examples: the South Vietnamese will still call Ho Chi Minh City by the original name, Saigon. Cape Canaveral gave up being Cape Kennedy and went back to being Canaveral. No one outside the ruling junta uses the name Myanamar in Burma.

In Bermuda we once named the psychiatric hospital St. Brendan's in order to give it a neutral name and to avoid any stigma. Now we have named it once again and given it an awkward and misleading name and moved it from Devonshire to Mid-Atlantic.

Wether we like it or not, people are not fooled.

John Swan attempted to call the Airport after Sir Henry Tucker. That did not succeed. Even with another name it will probably remain "The Airport" to most Bermudians. And I would take bets that the Ag Show will remain the Ag Show and the Bio Station will remain the Bio Station.

We can only hope that the City of Hamilton will remain "Town".

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