When I first read of the erection of the towering 9m statue of Oliver Tambo at the Johannesburg airport earlier this week, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, this was a man of substance, known for his deep faith, immense sacrifices and a profound humanity. He deserves such recognition. On the other hand, SA now has more statues honouring great men than most countries in the world. Which raises the intriguing question: why do nationalists love hoisting (and downing) statues?
It is, of course, to send a message, and here, timing helps interpretation. As the Hawks make their way around the country arresting allegedly corrupt politicians, we are reminded more than ever that the country is drowning in a swamp of corruption. The money meant to rescue the poor is being grabbed from open mouths. When the Solidarity Fund was started, I posted this Twitter message: “Mr President, can you guarantee that every cent in that fund would reach the poor?” Of course, we now know the answer to that question; four new courts have just been established to deal with Covid-19 corruption. So what does our government do? Raise a huge statue of a moral icon amid thieving dwarfs. It is hoped that by looking up in awe at another African big man, you would not look around you at the devastation of poverty and neglect made visible by the coronavirus.
Some say the message of the Tambo statue is bald, unimaginative and lacking educational value. SA’s two most prominent scholars of monuments make this point in different ways. Prof Brenda Schmahmann, from the University of Johannesburg (UJ), asks of the new statue: “Can we now move on from a tired and conventional way of commemorating worthy people to one that is progressive and worthwhile?” Cape Town’s Prof Grant Parker, now head of classics at Stanford University in the US, criticises “the aesthetics of the gigantic” in South African commemorations and its limited pedagogic value: “We cannot assume,” he says, “that such statues engage viewers in today’s visually saturated world. Most lack an interactive element.”
One could argue that, for the nationalist, the point of these statues is not interactive teaching, but barefaced indoctrination with a preferred view of history. The Tambo figure carries what looks like the Freedom Charter, a particular version of politics and history associated with the ruling party and its allies; there are other visions of society not captured (sic) in this symbolic representation. Mostly, the huge statue is there to overwhelm and impress, not to teach and even less to learn anything other than might.
One could argue that for the nationalist, the point of these statues is not interactive teaching but barefaced indoctrination with a preferred view of history.
On this subject, the Irish historian, Niamh NicGhabhann, got it right when she observed that “statues and monuments occupy a strange middle ground between hot and banal nationalism”. The political pageantry of the launch this week is hot nationalism on steroids. After which the great man’s statue becomes part of the banality of post-apartheid life, simply being “there” as we continue to defy everything for which Tambo struggled, his entire life sacrificed for the greater good.
Then the ultimate banality, as President Cyril Ramaphosa reminds us of the commercial value of the gigantic bronze statue: “I have no doubt this one too [like Nelson Mandela’s statue in Pretoria] will become a major tourist attraction.” All of which sounded odd in this Covid moment, where our airports look like ghost towns with SA’s borders shut to spending visitors from major tourist destinations.
No matter, statues are not meant to tally with reality. They stand for what was lost and lend the appearance of normality, as if all is well. Until the lie becomes so jarring, the memory so offensive, that those memorials fall in spectacular fashion from the confederate monuments in the American South to Edward Colston’s statue in the city of Bristol, England. It took a singular event of horrific proportions, the extrajudicial killing of a black man called George Floyd, to ignite the transcontinental downing of statues from the slaveholding era, under the banner of Black Lives Matter (BLM).
We play along. For now, statues of our heroes stand. Until the lie becomes too much and the suffering overwhelms. When the hypocrisy of moral projection (Tambo, the finest exemplar) meets the reality of moral collapse. Then statues come toppling down in the second spectacle.
A word to the nationalists. Use the money for new statues to build houses that stand, schools that work and hospitals where patients no longer lie on the floors waiting for beds. Such memorials to decency and development are the ones that matter more.
