It is hard to think of a less deserving object of desecration than the Horse Memorial in PE, says Dr Beverley Roos-Muller.
Cape Town - There can scarcely be a more innocent victim of the attack on public statues than the Horse Memorial in Port Elizabeth, which was raised in memory of the horses that served and died in the second Boer War.
As an alumnus of UCT and former staff member, I voted in favour of removing the statue of Rhodes from its current position as my research has led me to understand how deeply divisive and destructive his personal role was as a British immigrant to South Africa, and how his fomenting of the war of 1899 to 1902 led to the bitter loss of so many women and children civilians, black as well as white.
His “legacy” was nothing short of outright theft, and therefore I see no need to honour it in any way.
In my response to UCT, however, I endorsed former President Mandela’s belief that past statues and memorials should be kept as a reminder of our tragic and often disgraceful past, and that the historicity of such memorials be understood.
For most Afrikaners, including those who supported the Struggle and were delighted to see 1994 ushered in (though born into an Irish family I include myself in this category), men such as generals Botha and Smuts were freedom fighters, too, defending their two Boer republics against a greedy British Empire, which then broke virtually all their pre-war promises to black leaders and communities regarding their legal and human rights.
Among the many victims of that war were almost half-a-million horses (including some mules and donkeys). Major Frederick Smith, who was a witness to the incredible loss of equine life, complied a comprehensive report on the wastage of these poor creatures shipped in from all over the world, including South America (thereby also introducing the plague in early 1901 as ships carried in horse fodder). He cited losses of 326 000 horses and more than 50 000 mules.
The Royal Commission of 1903 confirmed that the care of horses during the war had often been disgraceful, the majority being ridden, before recovering from the sea voyage, by inexperienced soldiers, then dying of exhaustion, thirst, starvation, neglect and wounds.
In stark contrast, the Boer fighters, accomplished riders, held their horses and ponies in the highest regard, on occasion giving them dignified funerals and mourning their loss as they would a comrade in arms.
Many of Port Elizabeth’s citizens, irrespective of which “side” of the war they had supported, and who had seen how terribly the imported horses had been treated, raised money by public subscription for a monument to their suffering. A 3-ton bronze gelding, created by Joseph Whitehead, was sent by ship to South Africa in 1905 and swung onto the docks in Port Elizabeth, just as the poor remounts had been, in a civic ceremony to honour their innocent suffering.
It is hard to think of a less deserving object of desecration or destruction than this horse monument, raised precisely to mourn the loss of innocent life and the tragedy of violence. May we remember those, from all sides, including the Earth’s poor creatures too, who died in the midst of a tragic battle for power.
In the end, that war benefited only the already rich. That alone is worth remembering.
* Dr Beverley Roos-Muller is an academic, journalist and writer.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Times