Two Bits – 3 April 2015

Some of my friends are incensed that Cape Town University students, and nearer home, their counterparts at KZN University Durban, want to tear down statues of Cecil Rhodes and King George V on their respective campuses.
Such wilful destruction of this country’s history does nothing, they say, to fix the real problems of today – poor education, joblessness, crime and so many other things.
They’re right, but their arguments seem to have no effect on the so-called youth leaders around the country, who now have drawn a beard on Oom Paul Kruger’s statue in Pretoria’s Church Square and others.
Judging from some of the heated and passionate speeches televised from UCT over the past week, I think the students leading the Rhodes Must Go campaign must suffer from low self-esteem. To some extent I can sympathise with a student who might have come from a poor, rural background, with language difficulties etc, being overawed by the whole university atmosphere and feeling cowed and inadequate.
I feel quite ambivalent about statues. As a schoolboy I walked past the statue of Queen Victoria in ‘Maritzburg’s former Longmarket St – now Langalibalele St – almost every day, but I don’t think I ever stopped and thought: “There she is, a symbol of my proud English heritage.” No, the statue was just there. Call me a cultural ignoramus with no sense of history, but what was more interesting to me was the imposing facade of the old Natal Parliament, with its symmetry and sense of space. I just love some old buildings.
It certainly doesn’t mean that all old things are good. Recently I was caught short in the middle of Durban and had to go to the subterranean public toilets opposite the old Post Office, on the corner of Dr Pixley Kaseme and Dorothy Nyembe Streets (see how things change?). My word, that was an experience I don’t want to relive in a hurry. The drug dealers and layabouts in there were in a state of shock, not from the horrendous smell as you might think, but from the sight of a big white man standing alongside them at the urinals. Never seen one there before. It was quite funny, really.
But I digress. Statues tend to be part of the furniture in an urban open space and, if you think about it, have less practical value than a comfortable park bench. Pigeons use them with abandon for their toilet business, and they do not care if they are defecating on Queen Victoria or Nelson Mandela.
But if the sight of a statue makes you and the whole community or student body physically ill, then by all means consign it to the museum, the basement or a hole in the ground. One of the most visually symbolic moments of the Iraqi revolution was when the huge statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down. Perhaps it set the people free, perhaps it didn’t, but it made a whole bunch feel better at the time.
Statues are trappings, mere baubles. Not so long ago our own municipality spent a bunch of money putting up a statue of Gandhi in the middle of Stanger. Good for them, but bear in mind that in 100 years time another regime may emerge which doesn’t share their values and tears it down. It would have been of more immediate, practical value to the good citizens of Stanger if they could have had a pretty, tinkling fountain and a shoe polish stand. Half the price, anyway.
I have no doubt that as with the renaming of streets, sooner or later the new government will want to commission statues of their heroes – as has already been done for Mandela. If it raises pride in nation building, increases self belief, then by all means go for it.
For my part, I believe the money would have more lasting value in living monuments, such as shelters and food for underprivileged children, schools and training colleges so that the nation can lift itself out of the dumps by its own bootstraps. That will build pride better than any statue.
* * *
Two elderly women are walking through a museum and get separated.
As soon as they meet up again, one appears quite flustered and says, “My goodness! Did you see the statue of the naked man back there? I’ve never been so shocked. How can they possibly display such a thing. My gosh, the penis on it was so large!”
Whereupon, the other old lady accidentally blurts out, “Yes, and cold, too!”