The US Embassy in eSwatini quickly changed its branding – and even updated its Twitter account. Not everyone has taken this stance though.
This is perhaps why, for example, Google Maps still refers to Swaziland despite being a digital service that could be updated very quickly. Still, even at the time of writing eSwatini’s main government website continues to refer to Swaziland. However, the email signature gave the old name. “Indeed,” she replied, “our Mission is now the High Commission of the Kingdom of eSwatini.”
I asked whether The Kingdom of Swaziland High Commission would be changing its name. When I contacted the Swazi High Commission, the office of eSwatini’s Commonwealth representative in London, for comment, a spokeswoman said the name change had “no implication for any of our policies and agreements”. This legal protection will certainly save foreign businesses the cost of updating myriad corporate documents. An official notice was published that says any international agreements or legal contracts referring to Swaziland will be understood as referring to eSwatini. Likely for practical reasons, the king has also made an effort to safeguard the validity of legal documentation that refers to Swaziland. “It would have to take time so that we finish the stock that we have,” explained Home Affairs Minister Princess Tsandzile Dlamini in newspaper reports. Government letter heads that say “Swaziland” won’t be thrown out, for example. eSwatini’s Home Affairs Ministry has said renaming will be done gradually in order to limit costs. Given the uncertainty, government bodies have sent out messages claiming that the name change will not be highly disruptive or expensive. One levy of post-colonialism, then, is the financial burden that comes with scrubbing out vestiges of the past. And even in Berlin, street names in the African Quarter linked with colonial history have been marked for removal. In the mid-twentieth century, the leader of Kenya decreed that local street names had to be changed to non-colonial versions this process took years. In neighbouring South Africa, changes to colonial street names in the city of Pretoria, for instance, have cost millions of rand. “The paperwork, the website, signage on government properties, government agencies – there’s a huge, huge expenditure here and one’s got to ask right at the beginning is this really necessary,” says Jeremy Sampson, executive director for Africa at marketing firm Brand Finance. He admits that his estimate is very “back of the envelope” and based mainly on assumptions about how rebranding works in corporate contexts such as when a company changes its name, but it is a potentially useful bit of guesswork given that no-one really knows what kind of bill King Mswati III’s people will be left with. This gives the $6 million that may ultimately have to be found by the eSwatini government.Īs Olivier points out, for such a small country, that is “not insignificant”. That would be $60 million in this case – and rebranding budgets typically take up 10% of those marketing costs. For a large company the average marketing budget costs around 6% of its revenue, he says. He calculated this based on the country’s taxable and non-taxable revenue at about $1 billion. Shortly after King Mswati III’s announcement, Olivier published a blog in which he estimated that it will cost the country $6 million to change its name. Like many, Olivier has wondered exactly what the price tag for eSwatini will be. “Yet at the same time there’s a cost – a physical cost in changing the identity.” “There’s value in that, there’s intrinsic value in that identity and what it means for the people,” he points out. It was his nineteenth century ancestor, King Mswati II, from whom the people of eSwatini took their name in the first place.Īlthough changing the country name is not a purely superficial act, according to South Africa-based intellectual property lawyer and blogger Darren Olivier. It must have had some personal significance, too, as 19 April was also the king’s 50th birthday. King Mswati III chose a day of celebration marking 50 years since the end of British colonial rule to make his decree on the national name change. Like many countries in Africa, landlocked eSwatini which borders Mozambique and South Africa has wrestled with how to redefine itself in its post-colonial era. And, indeed, what the national rebranding exercise will cost this nation of around 1.5 million people. Now enshrined in law, the change has left many wondering how and in what forms the change will be effected. Too often, he added, was Swaziland confused with the similar-sounding nation, Switzerland, when referred to abroad.Īlthough the name eSwatini (pronounced “eh-swa-TEE-nee”), meaning ‘Home of the Swazi people’, is often used locally, is not a new creation, the announcement came as something of a surprise to the country’s citizens – and the rest of the world.