Kruger statue must go, says South African populist party
A ROW over the fate of symbols from South Africa’s white-rule past has erupted afresh after a radical political party resurrected a campaign to tear down the statue of Paul Kruger, the Boer leader, in Pretoria.
Reviving memories of the controversial “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign of 2015, the party of Julius Malema, the populist firebrand, is renewing calls to have the city’s historic centrepiece re- moved. Mr Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has announced a proposal to replace Kruger’s statue with a monument dedicated to Winnie Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist and ex-wife of Nelson Mandela.
Kruger, who as president of the Transvaal Republic was Britain’s great foe during the Second Boer War, has an equivocal reputation in South Africa.
Many Afrikaners, who refer to him as “Oom (Uncle) Paul”, regard him as a folk hero. But many black South Africans see him as a symbol of oppression.
Mrs Mandela’s death has given the EFF an opportunity to revive its “Oom Paul Must Fall” campaign after an earlier attempt to remove the Kruger statue and colonial-era street names was blocked by the ruling African Na- tional Congress.
“It is a shame these dark figures from our ugly past continue to haunt us as we walk and drive on our roads,” said Moaferika Mabogoane, an EFF local councillor in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital.
After South Africa secured black majority rule in the early Nineties, many statues of apartheid-era figures were removed from government buildings and city parks. Others, however, particularly those of historical figures from the era before apartheid began in 1948, were allowed to remain.
But three years ago students at the University of Cape Town threw a bucket of human excrement over a statue of the Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes, heralding a broader campaign against “white privilege”.