I imagine the spirits of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo having a good laugh about this one. As 10m statues of the struggle icons are unveiled in Durban, white shrouds falling clumsily to earth, their benevolent ghosts give each other a gentle ribbing.
Tambo complains gleefully that his old comrade’s pose, fist raised in the air, gives his figure an additional height advantage: “Typical! You always have to be bigger than everyone else. Mind you, at least this one is better than that Madiba-shuffle monstrosity on the square in Sandton, hey?”
Mandela snaps back in jocular fashion: “You’re one to talk. Have you visited the airport in Johannesburg recently? There are two statues of you there and neither of them looks like you!”
“Umninawa,” replies Tambo, “We both know which of us has the most statues, and therefore also has the most statues that don’t look anything like him.” Then, after a pause: “Do you think they have put a rabbit in your ear again?”
Mandela almost manages to ignore this cheeky allusion to the tiny symbol of protest — later removed — that was left by the sculptors of his giant statue outside the Union Buildings. But eventually he takes the bait. “I didn’t mind that haas. I would also have been annoyed if your son told me I must be haastig! Speaking of uDali, I’m surprised he wasn’t involved in these new statues. He has made lots of money from this kind of thing. I remember when they wanted a big bust of me for parliament. He got that contract before they even asked for tenders.”
Eina. Mandela worries that he has taken the joking too far. Tambo isn’t offended. But his mood has turned wistful and earnest. “Ndiyavuma. At least these ones cost only R22m. That’s a fraction of the Long March to Freedom statues. There are hundreds of those.” A twinkle returns to his eyes. “Of course, you had to be at the front of that line, too.”
These elders, once Young Lions, can’t condone misspending. And does the eThekwini municipality have surplus money to spend on yet more statues?
Yet somehow the playful mood has passed. These elders, once Young Lions, can’t condone misspending. And does the eThekwini municipality have surplus money to spend on yet more statues?
As critics of the Long March to Freedom such as Thulile Gamedze and Marnell Kirsten have pointed out, Dali Tambo’s obsession with commissioning life-size bronzes for the National Heritage Monument Project may have the right intentions in celebrating key (often forgotten) figures in South African history but remains limited by adherence to a colonial and imperial imagination of what “paying tribute” through statuary entails.
The past decade has seen enormous contestation over unwanted statues in South Africa, the UK, US and elsewhere — from RhodesMustFall to Black Lives Matter. The defacing of Winston Churchill’s likeness on Parliament Square in London last week is only the latest in a series of similar acts against that particular lump of bronze.
Mandela and Tambo are above history’s reproach, it would seem, and one can’t imagine a future in which South Africans would want to protest against these heroes. In fact, apart from Rhodes and a few other exceptions, we tend to be quite kind even to statues of those who, while they may not be villains exactly, represent the worst aspirations of white nationalism. Sometimes we remove them, but often enough we treat them with a curious politeness and patience. Or perhaps just indifference and neglect, which is another form of critique.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is not entirely wrong to defend the new statues in Durban as potential sites of interest for tourists. But the statues that most capture our collective attention are the ones that have tumbled down or have been battered by time. Ozymandias, the Colossus of Rhodes or any number of colossal monuments from the classical world. We marvel at the ambition and folly of their creators, at futile dreams of permanence.
We may also be moved by the tragedy of their eventual, inevitable destruction and by the human cost that this represents. Across the ancient lands of Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Iraq are scattered statues that survived millennia only to be destroyed by 21st-century brutes. If Islamic State iconoclasts didn’t get them, Israeli and American bombs will.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.