Toppling Verwoerd: statue of apartheid leader removed in Midvaal

A statue of Hendrik Verwoerd that’s been sitting unnoticed outside the municipal buildings in Meyerton is an unlikely ‘victim’ of the run-up to local government elections. This statue, in an area controlled by the Democratic Alliance, was quickly removed and returned to its owners, the Kliprivier Vallei Kultuurraad, after it hit the headlines

Consider the statements made by three contesting political parties.

 

 

African National Congress statement

The continued hoisting high of apartheid architect Dr Hendrik Verwoerd`s statue by the Democratic Alliance (DA) Midvaal Mayor Timothy Nast outside the Mayerton municipal buildings during democracy, is yet another confirmation that the DA shares apartheid sentiments and philosophies, which for years racially polarised the South African society with Black people having been at the receiving end of oppression, exploitation and institutionalised segregation.

We firmly believe that the continued hoisting of Dr Verwoerd`s statue in Midvaal, as well as last Friday`s landmark Western Cape High Court judgment on the Makaza open toilets ruling, which found that the DA-led City of Cape Town violated the human rights and dignity of Black people who include Africans, Coloureds and Indians, is enough to convince the South African electorate that the DA is a party only committed to racial segregation, with no interest in building better communities.

The sheer display of arrogance by Mr Nast who has refused to remove Dr Verwoed`s statue - despite much discomfort and displeasure expressed by the majority of our people – is a clear indication of the DA’s resolve to continue with its psychological warfare to subject South Africans to the dehumanising system of apartheid oppression. Mr Nast’s insensitive comment that residents would be “angry” if the statue was removed, remains an insult to millions of South Africans who were on the receiving end of apartheid.

Tolerant as we are of those who inflicted pain to our people during decades of apartheid tyranny in this country, we cannot tolerate a situation in which an architect of apartheid and a symbol of racial oppression is being celebrated by Mr Nast and the DA during democracy. Failure by DA leader Helen Zille to call the Midvaal mayor to order and get Dr Verwoerd’s statue removed also shows DA`s complicity in the promotion of the apartheid legacy and disregard for Black people - particularly those residing in the Midvaal region.

To the majority of South Africans – except in the eyes of the DA – Dr Verwoed remains a symbol, embodiment and apartheid architect of all ills of the country’s terrible past and his statue should be confined to a museum. Instead of allowing the promotion of Dr Verwoed’s statue, the DA should be ashamed and be sensitive of what millions of our people have gone through.

Source: Press Statement issued by Jackson Mthembu, National Spokesperson, African National Congress, on 4 May

Democratic Alliance statement

A bust of Hendrik Verwoerd located on municipal property in Midvaal has been removed and returned to its owners, the Klipriver Vallei Kultuurraad, which is a local cultural organisation. The removal of the bust was done in consultation and with the agreement of the organisation.

The bust - which has gone unnoticed in Meyerton for the past 30 years - has recently generated a great deal of manufactured hysteria on the part of the ANC, unlike the many Verwoerd roads, parks, schools, and nature reserves that dot ANC-run councils across South Africa. This comes as no surprise to the Democratic Alliance (DA). The ANC’s sudden interest in the bust is transparently an attempt to shift attention off the issues that really matter in this election: delivering services to the people of South Africa, especially the poor.

The truth is that this election is not about a bust of Hendrik Verwoerd, who has rightly been consigned to history. This election is about the future of the people of South Africa, many of whom depend on local governments to provide the services that make life bearable.

It is about the people of Stinkwater in Hammanskraal who have no electricity or council-supplied water, and whose borehole water is contaminated by nearby pit latrines.
It is about Charmaine Poggenpoel in Calvinia, who needs an urgent life-saving operation but whose municipality is unwilling to assist with getting her to a major hospital.
It is about the people of Ikageng whose children are left to play on growing heaps of rotting rubbish and refuse left there by the ANC council.
It is about the community of Mbombele in Mpumalanga, who were moved off their land in order to build a stadium and were paid R1 each in return.
It is about the people of Ikwezi in KwaZulu-Natal, 62% of whom do not have access to basic sanitation.
It is about the 10 000 people of Seshego who are serviced by two taps, and the people of Witbank where there has been no running water for 45 days.

The DA has and will continue to run a serious election campaign based on real issues, because South Africa deserves a serious debate about how best to improve the lives of people who are destitute and at the mercy of failing local governments.

We invite all South Africans, including the ANC, other political parties, the media and civil society to join us in this debate.

On the 19th of May, what will matter is not who scored points in a political mud fight. What will matter is whether the people of South Africa can look forward to better service delivery for the next five years.

The welfare and aspirations of the South African people are at stake in this election. Let us all give them the respect they deserve as we campaign over the next 12 days.

Source: Statement issued by Democratic Alliance National Spokesperson, Lindiwe Mazibuko on 5 May 2011

Freedom Front+ statement

“The DA cannot change the history of South Africa by removing a statue,” was the reaction of Dr. Pieter Mulder, FF Plus leader, following the removal of the statue of Dr. Verwoerd in Midvaal.

“The reasoning should not be whether one agrees with and individual from our history but whether it is part of our history. Queen Victoria had a part in the death of my family members in the British concentration camps. Because she is unfortunately part of our history I did not demand that her statue is removed at Parliament and other places in South Africa. Why doesn’t the DA now also remove the statues of Jan van Riebeeck in Cape Town ‘as the original conqueror’ and of Queen Victoria in Cape Town?” Dr. Mulder asked.

Where there is a feeling that history is not complete the FF Plus had in the past proposed that new statues are erected, for example, of previous ANC leaders, such as Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. In the case of Midvaal Dr. Verwoerd was for many years the Parliamentary member for the Midvaal area and that is why his statue was erected there and to date had even by the ANC been left there.

In many African states one of the contributing factors for their permanent instability is the fact that all history, statues and street names of a previous president is constantly replaced by a new president.

Following the fall of the Berlin wall and the re-unification of Germany, it was decided that the communist statues and names in East Germany will be retained because it is part of their history. It is a more sensible approach to the country’s history. Another approach will mean that the PAC for example, will remove all ANC street names and statues should they take control of the country.

City councils such as Midvaal and a number of others should rather utilise municipal taxes for service delivery than to waste it on the changing of street names and the removal of monuments.

Source: Statement issued by Dr Pieter Mulder of the Freedom Front + on 5 May 2011

The statue has been removed, but the issue of what to do about the traces of our troublesome past cannot be dismissed as summarily. Should these relics remain untouched as reminders of our history? Should they be juxtaposed with new monuments to set up opportunities for engagement? Or, should they be consigned to museums or storerooms?

While many monuments remained in place under the watch of presidents Mandela and Mbeki, driving home a national agenda of reconciliation, it seems the tide is turning and there are worrying signs that history is being erased.

We should be worried, not just over the fate of an individual statue, but because this incident is symptomatic of the deeper problems that beset us a nation. As Verne Harris asked in the conclusion to the Alan Paton Memorial lecture he delivered earlier this month, “How do we enable the decolonisation of our memory institutions? How do we tend the place of bruise, of wound, of damage? How do we create conditions for healing, without prescription, without blueprint? How do we rescue the post-apartheid reconciliation project? How do we befriend the mistakes of our pasts? How do we grow up as a nation?”

 

 

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