JB Marks family fight over statue
Struggle icon’s reburial and statue leads to dispute
THE statue of struggle icon John Beaver “JB” Marks is tearing the family apart.
Some of his family members complained that Marks’s blood relatives were excluded in the preparations for the official unveiling of the sixmetre bronze statue.
The statue near his grave in Ventersdorp was paid for by North West’s department of arts, culture and traditional affairs. It will be unveiled on March 22, exactly two years after Marks’ reburial after he had died and was buried in Russia in 1972.
Mari Marks, granddaughter of Marks’s brother Benjamin, said she was shocked to see the structure because they were never consulted.
She said Marks’s parents, Betty and John Marks, had six children: Morris, JB, Benjamin, Tinka, Nempi and Saki.
Betty was a midwife and, according to Mari, she helped a lady by the name of Elizabeth who was working around their neighbourhood to deliver her baby. She left the baby boy, Matthews, with Betty to raise, Mari said.
According to her, Matthews’s grandson Wakeel Marks presented himself as a family member when the government came looking for Marks’s relatives to go to Russia ahead of the repatriation of JB’s remains for reburial in SA.
Mari said after they heard about Wakeel they then went to government officials to say they were actually Marks’s correct family.
She said she was then told by government officials to lie low and act as a united family just for the smooth running of the reburial.
Mari said they were promised that the matter would be resolved after the burial but nothing happened.
“All we want is for everyone to know the truth. We want DNA tests to be performed. Oom Matthews was an adopted son and I am the granddaughter of JB’s brother Benjamin. I also need to be informed about the unveiling,” she said.
JB Marks never had children in SA and it was not known if he had children in Russia where he died.
He left SA for Russia in 1963 to lobby the international community to support the fight against apartheid.
But Matthews Marks’ s great grandson Roswyn Marks said they were also part of the family.
He said their grandmother Marie Marks, who was married to Matthews, had buried JB’ s mother, Betty.
“If they were the blood family like they say, why did Ouma Marie bury Ouma Betty?” he asked.
Roswyn said even if they went for DNA tests they would not succeed.
“We are one family, it’s just that we are dark in complexion and they are light. But we are one, it is not necessary [to go] for DNA testing.”
Roswyn said the other Marks family thought that the government was giving them money.
“They are thinking that there is money involved but we received nothing; they need to grow up and work for themselves.”
Deputy director in the arts, culture and traditional affairs department Ras Mpho Molapisi said the issue never arose when the reburial process started.
“Our approach is to work with the initial family representative and include others in the preparations,” Molapisi said.
He said his department needed the two sides to meet so that there could be a mutual understanding.
Molapisi said the department paid R4-million to Archway Projects for the statue which was designed by Marike Prinsloo of Cape Town.
It will be the first statue in the province post-1994.