What's in a name? The semantics of Hurricane Katrina
Issue date: 9/20/05 Section: VIEWS

By Ndirangu Wachanga

"What's in a name?" These words, written in the 16th century by William Shakespeare in "Romeo and Juliet," continue to engage humanity in its search for meaning.

It is not surprising that a heated debate, which almost degenerated into a verbal diatribe, erupted when those affected by hurricane Katrina refused to be described as "refugees." Instead, they argued, they are "evacuees." Others are at home with just being survivors. Others just want to be called Americans.

An evacuee is someone who has been removed to safer surroundings. A "refugee" is someone who is seeking shelter or protection from danger, someone driven from his abode by catastrophe, a displaced person. The difference between these two words can only be examined from a nominalistic viewpoint.

Nominalism, "pertaining to name," is a branch of philosophy that "holds that ideas represented by words have no real existence beyond our imaginations." The term "evacuee" for instance, is applied to someone who has been evacuated. It is a broad description. But no tangible distinctiveness with a separate essence of "evacuation" exists corresponding to the name.

The term "refugee" has almost always implied people fleeing dictatorial regimes, desperate souls in sun scorched humanitarian camps waiting for assistance. Probably most of us would only conceptualize the term "refugee" when referring to women suckling their almost dying children in Niger, to the displaced in Darfur, Sudan. The term "refugee" was first applied to the French Huguenots who came to England after the upheaval of Edict of Nantes in 1685.

Yet, what is in a name? In the world where terrorism has become a globalized phenomenon, we continue to search for its crisp definition. For those we call "terrorists" may consider themselves freedom fighters. And it is with no precedence. It happened in Africa during the war of independence. Africans arduously fighting for their lands were views as terrorists. They were freedom fighters to their nations.

And still, what is in a name? The Congress and the UN wrestled with this question in 1996 although in an excruciatingly slow way. Deliberating whether to refer to what was going on in Rwanda as "civil war" or "genocide" took three months. When discussion was over a million people had been painfully dispatched to the hereafter.

And if you think there is a name referring to slavery in Africa, think again. For according to Molefi Kete Asante, one of the most quoted, controversial scholars of African history, there were no slaves in Africa. Instead, there were "African people, farmers, blacksmiths, fishers and members of royal families, bought and enslaved." Describing them as slaves is a sure way of consigning them to a psychological limbo, is suppressing their ability to rise beyond the name given to them. For their dignity rests in refusing to be defined as slaves, rising to the level of humanity.

And still, what is in a name?

Nidrangu Wachanga is a journalism graduate student from Nairobi, Kenya. He can be reached at nimzeewanga29@yahoo.com.