Durban - The Sinners, a local alternative rock band, riled Facebook users when they said they wanted the Mother Goose statue on Durban beachfront to be removed because it was from the colonial era.
They said on social media: “remove statue… within 7 days or else”.
The statue stands at the entrance to Fun World.
The band said they had told the eThekweni Municipality to take it down because it was from a colonial-era nursery rhyme and was erected when the beachfront was designated for whites only.
Band spokesman, Dave Campbell, said: “It’s an old lady with her hand out. We don’t want a ‘hand out’ from old white colonial people. Real or fictitious.
“Don’t think we don’t understand the relevance of the green base the statue stands on. Green represents envy. As if she stands on the envious little people who walk past her every day,” he said.
Guitarist Stef van Emmenis said: “If you look carefully at Mother Goose’s face you can see it looks like singer Chris Chameleon, and everyone knows that he is Afrikaner. We don’t want English or Afrikaans heritage in the new South Africa.”
The band members wanted to tackle Mini Town next as it did not feature Nkandla and only represented Durban from the apartheid era of the 1970s, Campbell said.
However, he explained that this was a tongue-in-cheek reaction to the calls from students to remove all apartheid statues and the recent xenophobic violence.
“It was purely satire, a recognised art form. Many students got involved campaigning to remove the Cecil Rhodes statue yet the students were not seen or heard during the attacks on foreigners.”
He said art should be inspired by politics.
“None of the artists are getting involved in political commentary.
“The band has no intention of taking down Mother Goose but the question remains how many people have questioned if our post was real or not. People had mixed reactions.”
“The bottom line is: there are far more pressing issues we have to be concerned about.”
Daily News