DA defends colonial, apartheid statues

THE DA has defended colonial and apartheid statues, saying it strongly condemned the endorsement by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cabinet of a full audit of all statues, symbols and monuments and that those that do not reflect the constitutional values of a post-apartheid democratic country be relocated.

This after a virtual meeting last week where the Cabinet endorsed the process for historical statues, symbols and monuments to be relocated.

The idea is to move such statues to cultural “nation-building” parks.

This would be done by a consultative task team led by the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

In a statement, the DA said the process “aimed to create sanitised public spaces reflecting government-approved history.”

Such a history paid tribute to “government-approved heroes”.

The party said it would be requesting that the consultative task-team leading the process appear before the Sports, Arts and Culture Committee so that their “decision-making process can be interrogated”.

DA deputy spokesperson for Sports, Arts and Culture, MP Veronica van Dyk, said:

“Removing statues, symbols and monuments that do not form part of this narrative to ‘theme parks’ allows the ANC government to control how these statues are presented in the historical narrative to future generations.

“It silences the voices of the people for whom these statues, and the stories they tell, hold meaning.

“It denies them space in the new South Africa,” said Van Dyk.

Van Dyk said the decision to remove statues or monuments should be done on a “case-bycase basis at community level … after a process of extensive public participation”.

According to a statement, the Cabinet was briefed on the progress of the task team which is looking at the transformation of the heritage landscape.

“The team makes recommendations of the statues/ monuments that should espouse the founding values of the new democratic South Africa.

“It proposes the relocation of some of the historical statues to the theme parks that will be located across the country. A full audit of all the statues, symbols and monuments will be done and the outcome thereof will guide the identification of the proposed cultural nationbuilding parks,” the statement read.

The Cabinet endorsed the process, saying it would “contribute towards nation-building and ensure public spaces reflect the constitutional values of a postcolonial and post-apartheid democracy.

“The cultural nation building parks will relocate all the historical details that depict colonialism and apartheid artefacts for future generations,” the statement said.

Black Peoples National Crisis Committee (BPNCC) spokesperson Songezo Mazizi rejected the DA’s position.

“We support the position by the president. It’s long overdue and we call for this process to be fast-tracked.

“We cannot celebrate people who killed and raped our ancestors and we are reminded of that every time we see them,” said Mazizi.

The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture did not respond to questions by deadline.