I don't get monuments

Posted on July 27, 2010

There's something I just don't get about monuments. Last week the boss is sitting at his desk messing around on his computer when the phone rings and he doesn't speak much, just mutters, ' yes, yes, yes, mmm, mm, mm, ok, I'll get back to you on Monday'. Seems it's some dude from the press wanting an 'informed comment' on a Mandela monument that some smart hotel's put up in Sandton. So, guess who's sent off to check it out, while he sits at his computer arguing with himself about who has the right to put up monuments and why? By the time I get back he's all stirred up and off on a different tangent. Now he says, 'what about the ordinary people, how come there aren't monuments to the people we know, they also did their bit' So we get into a bit of an argument. I say, ' there must be, even if all those old monuments - the dead white men on horses - are still standing, surely by now there must be something different' and he says, 'ok then, find one'.

Now I've got a point to prove. So I start thinking and calling my friends (well it works for those guys on TV who want to be millionaires). Thabo, who lives across the yard in Alex, says I should take a look at the Miner's Monument, so I do, and it's all about the workers who died in accidents, but it doesn't say who they were, or even if they had anyone in particular mind when they put that monument up. Achmat, my Cape Town contact, says there used to be a monument to a couple who died in the struggle in Athlone, but it was stolen and sold for scrap, even though it was right there by the police station. But I hit the jackpot with George who lives in Jouberton. He says that there are three monuments, around there, that I should take a look at. I'm impressed.

So, I head off in the direction of Klerksdorp where I pick him up at the One-Stop. Stop one for us is Jouberton, and we're driving down this wide road with speed ditches in it when George says, 'slow down we're there', but all I can see is this big spiked fence around the traffic island and a sign that I can't read because it's right behind the fence. Anyway, we get out and look through the fence and there in the middle is a stone pillar with a statue - head and shoulders - of a man and a lot of ball-shaped things on iron stands. The sign says Casey Sindi Freedom Square and when I say, 'what's Casey famous for', George says he's a local hero, a struggle icon, a comrade who died in exile. As if everybody should know. I'm not impressed. I don't understand what the balls are about, and if George wasn't with me I'd have driven right past. So much for reminding people who Casey Sindi is, or rather was, or why we should remember him. George says if I really want to know I should read the transcripts of the TRC hearings held in Klerksdorp. Then I'll understand why remembering is a way of doing justice, not just talking about it.

Next stop is Tigane, and another fenced- in monument, Delekile Khoza Freedom Square. This time there's a structure that looks like a big gravestone and I can see that there's a list of names on it, but I can't read them. So I stick my camera between the bars and take a photo. When I download it I see it says, 'Names of the deceased: Tigane,' but I still don't know who these people are, or how they died or why, or if they're really buried there. 'More Struggle Heroes' George says. So we head back to the car, but one of the gogos waiting for the taxi comes to ask us where we're from. I ask her about the monument and who Delekile Khoza was. She's bitter, 'some other mother's son', she says, 'not mine', so I ask her, 'who decides which of the men who died to name the square after' and she mutters 'peace-time heroes, that's who'. So I ask her another question, 'why the fence?' She's laughs, 'so someone doesn't steal it' she says, 'someone who needs to put bread on the table'.

The light's fading and we head off to Mfana Majova Freedom Square in Khuma. By now we're used to the fence so it doesn't come as a surprise to see it towering over our heads, and the gate padlocked, and we stop asking who they're trying to keep out and why. This time though, there's a full-on statue of a man - he's not on a horse - he's just standing there, quite small and lonely in the middle of his square, cut off from the taxis. There are a couple more gravestones around him with names on them that we can't read. Not even in the photos. But there's something new here. Someone's carved out ANC in the grass, safe behind the fence, so big you can see it from across the road, and so carefully clipped that you know someone cares, maybe a comrade who made it home. Anyway, I think, the country's come a long way if we can have monuments like this in the township, not just in the places that tourists go. But how come these are all about victims, not victory?

Its' a long way back from Khuma to Jouberton, but George and I don't talk much. He smokes and I think about monuments and remembering. I'm impressed that the council has gone to so much trouble to build these monuments but I wonder about who makes the choices about who to remember and who to forget. Is this the government's job or should our communities have their say too? Why is it so important to keep memories alive? I think of the gogo and wonder how other people feel - proud, angry or sad? Do these monuments teach anyone anything or do they just sit there behind their fences. I wonder if the comrades who survived feel better knowing that their sacrifices haven't been forgotten, or maybe they feel forgotten anyway because the monuments aren't about them. I wonder whether the monuments should remind us just about the brothers who died. What about the issues they fought for? I wonder what will happen when people like George and all the other comrades are late. What will the youth make of these monuments then? Most of all I wonder why, if remembering matters, and monuments are important, they have to guard them with these big steel fences?

Mak (from Makhado) is a research assistant for a local heritage tenderpreneur.