Pretoria – Apartheid monuments, statues and symbols should be removed as they don’t advance the notion of nation-building, social cohesion or reconciliation.
So said Vuyani Booi, a lecturer at the University of Fort Hare.
South Africans should deal with the issues that were haunting them by removing apartheid and colonial symbols, he said.
“Where colonists found a place to settle, they put up tools of dominance which are these monuments,” he said.
The famed statue of Paul Kruger at Church Square were one of the statues in the firing line.
Booi was speaking during a session titled “Statues and Monuments in the South African Imagination” at the Science Forum South Africa .
The forum is hosted by the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor.
However, Siphokazi Sombambu, from the University of the Western Cape, said the dream of a rainbow nation did not exist. She did not support the destruction of the statues. She said there could be a case for having the statues removed but it would not be easy.
“The process to take down a statue is as bureaucratic as it is to erect it,” Sombambu said.
During the discussion, sentiments of reconciliation, or the lack thereof, were discussed.
When asked what removing these symbols would do for the country or its people in the face of so much poverty and inequality, Sombambu said there was nothing the removal of the statues would do in the bigger scheme of things.
“We can pull down these monuments, clear the ground but the problems won’t go away.
“To me all these monuments shouldn’t bother us. We should be bothered by other things.”
But Booi said that seeing the statues removed would bring healing to people emotionally and psychologically.
The forum ended on Friday, and served to bring a platform for dialogue on the future of science in Africa.