13 APRIL dispatches 12 2015 A CONTEST OF THOUGHTS XASO SCHUTTE KESSI KGOMOESWANA Is religion exempt Rhodes statue Time to African from the debate arouses decolonise our renaissance Constitution?/14 white male fears/15 universities/17 can’t be halted/19 Cecil Rhodes quite simply had to go HY now”, is the ques- Monuments are not just architectural pieces, they also hold tion repeat- edly asked as the mon- symbolic power projecting both the foundation values of the uments of ‘Wthe ancien régime are brought down Mcebisi Ndletyana by popular fury. Whilst seeming State and consent of its people,writes straightforward, the question itself has a double meaning. It betrays surprise at the very fall of the statues, whilst also suggest- ing that there was a pre-determined date by which the statues will be, or should have been, removed. And, the answer lies in the will remain standing beyond today. inverse question: “Why not now?” For them to remain standing one The monuments are falling must answer the question: what pur- exactly at the time when they ought pose does a statue that evokes hor- to. They’re being toppled by the ror serve in a new nation striving sheer force of the tension between towards reconciliation? our foundational values as a coun- It is hard to defend public display try, on the one hand, and their mean- of repressive figures, and not ing, on the other. appear as a racial supremacist. Monuments are not architectural In fact those who now stand in pieces. They hold symbolical power, guard at Paul Kruger's statue in Pre- projecting the foundational values toria are right-wing groups. and authority of the State. There’s nothing noble about What I mean, therefore, is that these people. monuments serve a legitimising They reject the foundational val- role in society. They cultivate popu- ues of our new republic and yearn lar acceptance and consent to the for the bygone age of racial authority of the State. supremacy. Consent derives from identifica- Nor can officialdom defend tion with the State. This implies that iconography that resents its very people have to embrace the values being. One can forgive their ambiva- espoused by the State. lence towards this anomaly. Monuments are therefore a con- Reconciliation created tolerance stant, public reminder of the foun- for a number of absurdities. dational values of the State and Statues of Bantustan leaders those in power. were removed, for instance, but Beyond the intellectual reso- their white counter-parts remain. nance, founding-leaders have also Yet, they were equally repressive. tended to appeal to the emotive side Terror Lekota, acting then as Pre- of people. Iconic leaders are not mier of the Free State Province, is memorialised simply because they probably the only government may be in power at the time, but also leader that toppled a statue of an because some enjoy popular adora- apartheid figure. tion arising from heroic exploits. The statue was of Hendrik Ver- Such heroic figures are then pre- woerd, the architect of the mon- sented as the embodiment of the strosity that was apartheid, then new state. Statues are then installed installed in front of the building to keep the “connection” with the housing the provincial legislature. people. Popular affection for the Lekota couldn’t bear the experi- leader is transferred to the state. REMOVING A REMINDER OF A HATED PAST: Hundreds of students and locals in Cape Town pitched up to witness the controversial removal, by ence of being greeted every morn- Ancient monarchs began the crane, of the Cecil John Rhodes statue from the university grounds. PICTURE:ROSS JANSEN ing by Verwoerd’s memory. practice and the contemporary dem- When racial supremacists ocratic republics have perfected it. stormed his office in protest, he Colonial and apartheid South Africa clearer in recent history than the try to another. In Russia the toppled ory of the repressive figures. moral postures, we should be ask- Let's stop faking an injury and unleashed his disgust upon them were no exception. They followed a democratic transitions that followed statues experienced a revival in pop- They’ve pretty much been neg- ing: why are these statues still stand- preserve our history and heritage as and what they represented, then similar route as their predecessors, the fall of the Soviet Union begin- ularity. Albeit tucked away, from the lected, but not entirely destroyed, no ing? Clearly, they no longer serve the the rest of the civilised world does. threw them out of his office. mimicking the same pattern as else- ning in the late 1980s. Statues of glare of the public, into some park, longer on prominent public display. purpose for which they were built. Public spaces are for the celebra- Of course, removal of statues is where in the world. totalitarian leaders suffered the the statues attracted tourists. The on-going debate on statues in The political order they were tion of foundational values and not the end-goal. It is part of an British colonialists built monu- same fate as the political order they Because of that attention, with this country, therefore, should be intended to bolster no longer exists. iconic figures. This is preservation ongoing project towards transform- ments and named public spaces hon- had built through tyranny. They its promise of financial gain, the contextualised. And, so they too must fall, just as of heritage. That’s how nation-states ing our society, to make it humane ouring their royalty and military were all toppled. authorities took a renewed interest It cannot take place as if we're a they have in the rest of the civilised build public consciousness. As for for black people. conquerors. Their monuments are And, their removal was not nec- in them. Some even received a face- people ignorant of the purpose of world. What of the claim that top- history, it doesn’t die just because it Rhodes’ fall, and many more that still abound and there's hardly a essary orchestrated by officialdom. lift and all were placed in a park that statues, with neither history nor pling these statues is an attempt at is not monumentalised. shall follow, simply add impetus to town in this country without an In most cases, it was spontaneous, came to be known as “the Park of memory. Nor should we pretend erasing certain parts of our history? It lives on through displays in our collective endeavour to realise imposed name. Apartheid ideo- sparked by public rage against what Art”, which some called the “The that South Africa has evolved out- This point is downright uncon- museums, the written word, art the dream of a just and non-racial logues, also keen to legitimise their those leaders represented. And, Park of Totalitarian Art”. side of global history. vincing. exhibitions and the curriculum at society. newly found authority, followed most significantly, their symbolism In other former Soviet lands, the To denounce protest against stat- Does anyone out there really schools. More than just statues will fall if from 1948 onwards. stood in contrast to the democratic post-removal life of the statues ues of the past regime, purely believe that removing the statue of If any of these were censored, our society remains unhealed of its The surge in Afrikaner monu- and human-right values that under- panned out differently. They didn't because of the methods employed, is Cecil Rhodes from its prominent dis- then the outcry about erasure of his- wounds. ments, therefore, signified the pinned the new political order. attract the same level of interest as a cunning way of perpetuating play at the University of Cape Town tory would be more than justified. change of political order. What became of the removed in Russia. Locals and tourists alike oppressive iconography. will erase him from South African Whatever our individual feel- ■ Ndletyana is head of the Politi- None made this connection any statues, however, differed one coun- couldn't be bothered with the mem- Instead of adopting pseudo- history? Seriously? ings, I fail to see how these statues cal Economy Faculty at MISTRA. Round the globe statues topple...sometimes even return! NE of the iconic images human and equine South African post-revolutionary period. Gough and Admiral Nelson (the ria statue in Cork was dug up in found in an English river. No one of the Second Gulf War War statue in Port Elizabeth and the In Delhi following independence statues of kings George I and 1995, unharmed after 60 years in its now cares why someone threw it is Robert Nicelsberg’s Dick King statue on Durban’s a large number of colonial statues George II were sold off). grave and now graces the senior into the torrent 2000 years ago. But photograph of the dra- esplanade are cases in point. were removed from their prominent Attempts to blow up the Welling- common room in the university. we do care about finding out who the O matic toppling of the Some have mysteriously disap- positions around the Indian capital ton memorial were unsuccessful as Time can temper zeal. statue represented and why he or statue of Saddam Hussein in Bagh- peared like the one of the Irish rev- and placed all together in a park, as the structure of Wicklow granite To some, statues are symbols of she was so commemorated. dad on 9 April 2003. olutionary Robert Emmett which a kind of statue graveyard. solidly defied the new order – but the old order, symbolic of repres- The plastering of white paint Twelve years later it would used to stand in Uitenhage.