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09/04/2015: Recent debates and vandalism of statues and monuments 

In recent weeks the country has experienced a resurgence of debates and dialogue in the print and electronic media on the place and significance of statues and memorials in South African public life.
Regrettably this has also taken on a destructive nature with some of the statues vandalized or defaced. However, the City of Johannesburg’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Community Development, Cllr Chris Vondo, welcomes the debates sparked by the presence of statues, memorial and monuments in our society and in the public spaces that define us as a people.

“Indeed, an enriched democratic discourse is characterized by continuous reflections on all symbols that shape and define society’s sense of identity and nationhood. It is the view of the city that underpinning the quest for national reconciliation, nation-building and the fostering social cohesion South Africa’s history and the present will continuously be defined by the past - a past of conquest and dispossession, a past of conflict and struggles for a new nationhood”.

Cllr Vondo also said the heritage of the past and the new one born of the present does not suggest or reflect the permanence of conflicts and divisions. He added that it proudly asserts and affirms unity in diversity, “it reflects a matured society that has openly dealt with its past and draws lessons from that past to shape a new social order”.

“Equally, a reconciling society is reflected by the radical changes of its national symbols reflecting both the past and the present”, Cllr Vondo said. Consequently, the City of Johannesburg’s policy approach to memorializing its complex histories has been in three definite directions.

It has embraced memorials that would have been divisive in the past and had them rededicated so that they embrace diverse experiences of the people of Johannesburg. One example is the Cenotaph at the Beyers Naude Square which initially commemorated the First World War but today also includes a dedication to all who lost their lives as result of struggles for national liberation.

The second strategy has been to mark the spaces that commemorate the atrocities of the past with the Hector Pieterson Memorial being of high profile. The use of memorials allows for a memory landscape that avoids triumphalism but humanizes those who were wronged in the past.

The third strategy is driven through the policy of public art which animates and stitches together the landscape of Joburg to bridge the spatial divide of the past and to humanize those areas that were in the past imagined as reservoirs of cheap labour.

In recent years, Johannesburg has taken a lead in developing a range of struggle monuments which have transformed the heritage landscape.

These include:
The Tsietsi Mashinini statue in Central Western Jabavu
The Silverton Three Monument in Diepkloof
“The Shadowboxer” - a tribute to Nelson Mandela in Ferrerastown
“Family Portrait”: the Weinberg monument in Savoy

The City of Johannesburg will continue on this positive path, protecting and re-interpreting a layered history and, importantly adding new works which help re-define our collective identity and future. Such forthcoming interventions include a Monument to Democracy and tribute to O.R. Tambo, the list goes on.

END

Issued by Cllr Chris Vondo, the Member of the Mayoral Committee for Community Development in the City of Johannesburg

For more information please contact:

Eddie Mokoena
Stakeholder Liaison Officer: MMC’s Office
Cell: 079 885 8641