Transforming Pretoria’s heritage landscape continue

On Friday, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa gave a report-back on work being done to transform South Africa’s heritage landscape. He noted it was necessary to continue to dismantle the apartheid social structure, including the removal of colonial and apartheid-era monuments and place names. The process initiated by Mthethwa in 2015 was a response to incidents surrounding statues in public spaces, after the demand for the removal of a statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town. It sparked a national debate over the transformation of the heritage landscape to foster a new national identity. Among the resolutions taken was that there was a need to create civic awareness and national consciousness using shared symbols such as the flag and national anthem, while offensive names and other "symbols of hate" should be removed. However, this did not mean every old name and statue had to be removed. Where such symbols reflected separate histories, an i…
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