Oom Paul’s days are numbered

Published Apr 17, 2015

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Pretoria - It is only a matter of time before Paul Kruger bids farewell to Church Square - his home for the past 61 years.

The public dialogue on heritage monuments hosted by the City of Tshwane on Thursday all but endorsed that Kruger and other statues of past colonial masters must indeed fall, while calling for a public debate on the future of national monuments. There was a suggestion that a memorial park be created for undesirable statues. However, participants emphasised that history be respected.

The National Heritage Act should also be complied with and dialogues extended to include tolerance and cohesion.

Tshwane mayor and ANC Tshwane regional leader, Kgo-sientso Ramokgopa, said statues were a biography of the city. He said the biography should include chapters on the dark past, which must be seen and forgotten, but not hidden.

Ramokgopa said there should be a debate on what the public spaces where the statues were located represented. “The spaces must reflect a new identity. We must discuss how people consume heritage monuments; they must interact with them. Let us address the bigger question.”

Solly Nkuna, representing the SA Students Congress, said not every history should be in public space and questioned why Kruger, whom he accused of killing black people, was at Church Square.

Christo van den Heever, of the DA, said history could not be wiped out and called for it to be acknowledged in the creation of a future.

Kgabo Morifi, of the Young Communist League, said Kruger should fall, and they were not going to be apologetic about it.

Freedom Front Plus MP Anton Alberts had a heated exchange with youth league members, who shouted “Kruger killed black people” while he was speaking.

Alberts said the debate was not about black and white, and called for reconciliation and respect for history. “If you laugh at me and tell my history is inferior, there is no point having this discussion,” he said.

ANC Youth League Tshwane leader, Lesego Makhubela, said the statue applauded and prolonged the torture of black people.

He said reconciliation should not be at the expense of black people, whom he added had compromised all these years.

Retired Major-General Gert Opperman said Afrikaners were not against the removal of the statue, but wanted it to be done properly and with dignity.

“There are Afrikaners who have and will move statues to where they will be treated with dignity,” he said.

Sonwabile Mancotywa, of the National Heritage Council, condemned the damage of heritage symbols and expressed shock at the display of intolerance towards them. He was critical of new statues such as those of Steve Biko, Sefako Makgatho and Es’kia Mphahlele, saying they were too small. Those of colonial masters such as Kruger were imposing, he said.

Dr Susan Bouillon, representing the Provincial Heritage Resources Agency, warned that heritage resources could not be removed, changed or defaced. Anyone found guilty of such could be ordered to restore them and fined or jailed.

Bouillon submitted that heritage resources should be considered as part of the national estate and not used for political gain.

An application to remove them must be made and permission granted if they were found to have no heritage value, she added.

Professor Kennedy Chinyowa, of the Tshwane University of Technology, said South Africans needed to fast-track decolonisation or risked facing destruction as other African countries experienced.

Dr Mcebisi Ndletyana, of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, said the defacing of heritage resources reflected the incomplete project that started in 1994.

“We should seek to find symbols that represent the present and what we aspire to become. There seem to be a perception that the statues should be replaced with those of black people, but this debate should not be about race or tribalism.”

Pretoria News

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