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Changing Colonial era Names (Philippines, Indonesia)

Should the Philippines and Indonesia be renamed?


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    30

Wholegrain

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The name "Philippines" and "Indonesia" were created by western colonialists.

The Philippines name is particualrly horrible, because it derives from King Philip II, the King of Spain who started the colonization of the Philippines. He also suffered from syphillis and died a horrible death from gout. The Spanish colonizers named the archipelago after him.

The Philippines should be renamed "Sulaymania" سليمانيا after Rajah Sulayman, the ruler of the Kingdom of Maynila on Luzon island. He was the first victim of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. He was the Muslim ruler of Maynila and related to the Brunei royals. When the Spanish landed in Luzon he fought against them and was killed in battle. After the Spanish conquest, Islam was wiped out from the northern Philippines (Luzon island) and they (the Tagalog people of Manila) are Catholic now, but Rajah Sulyaman is commemorated as an anti-Spanish hero and there is a statue of him in Maynila. (Most Muslims in the northern Philippines now are Moro migrants from the south and not nativie Tagalogs.)

Filipino then can be changed to "Sulaymani".

(by the way this is unrelated to the Moro issue. The Moro Muslims live on the southern islands of Mindanao and Sulu and had nothing to do with the Tagalog Kingdom of Maynila and Rajah Sulayman. Rajah Sulayman is regarded by the Tagalog as their national hero and they put the statue of him in Manila. The Tagalogs were Muslims and pagan Animists but were converted to Catholicism after the Spanish conquest of the Philippines. They are the second largest ethnic group in the Philippines and their Tagalog language is the basis for the Filipino language. Rajah Sulayman is a hero for the Catholic Tagalog Filipinos.)

Even Mexico, which was conquered by the Spanish and where the majority speaks Spanish today, is derived from a native Aztec name.

Indonesia was also a western created name. The native name for the entire Indonesian archipelago is Nusantara.

An empire based primarily on Java and which used to span accross the Indonesian archipelago did exist a few hundred years ago, it was called Majapahit.

Indonesia was created by westerners from Greek words Indus (India) and nesos (island). Since they used to call the area the "East Indies", they took the origin of the word "India" and "island" and put them together to create "Indonesia".

Indonesia should be renamed "Republic of Nusantara".

Vote whether you think agree or not. Voting on both countries is allowed.
 
Name change is irrelevant without establishing their native language and writing system.
 
Name change is irrelevant without establishing their native language and writing system.

It is relevant, they call themselves the "Philippines" and "Indonesia" in their native languages. In the Filipino language (based on the Tagalog language), the Philippines is called the Philippines, in Bahasa Indonesia, Indonesia is called Indonesia.

We don't call China as "China" in Chinese.
 
It is relevant, they call themselves the "Philippines" and "Indonesia" in their native languages. In Tagalog, the Philippines is the Philippines, in Bahasa Indonesia, its Indonesia.

We don't call China as "China" in Chinese.

what do you call china ?
 
Suleyman is Arab name. It is not native to the land. Philippines matches the current culture of the land which is christian.
 

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