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19 November 2018 Photo Sonia Small
On Statues and Statutes MT Steyn statue creates a vital precedent
Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor

Opinion article by Prof Francis Petersen

Every morning on my way to the office, I pass this imposing figure. Elevated on a granite plinth in front of the Main Building of the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein Campus, cast in bronze, more than twice the size of a normal person, the statue of President Marthinus Theunis Steyn is by all accounts an impressive work of art.
  
Why such a contentious figure?

Unlike Cecil John Rhodes, who has become the embodiment of colonialism in South Africa, history paints the last president of the independent Orange Free State a little more amicably: MT Steyn was an outspoken anti-imperialist, a pacifist who tried until the very end to avoid war with Britain, a humanitarian who did a lot for Boer women and children after the war.
  
However, he was also the leader of a republic that didn’t acknowledge the rights of all its ethnic groups. From a modern-day human rights perspective, his Free State was decidedly unequal and unjust.
  
In its recent report, the ministerial task team on the transformation of the heritage landscape points out that statues are never just “innocent pieces of architecture.”  They embody a strong “symbolic power” and project “the foundational values of the state and those in power.” It’s never about the persona alone, but about the totality of values he/she represents.

Situated where it is – in front of the building housing the university’s executive – the question is whether we, as the leadership of this institution, align ourselves with these values.

And if there’s any doubt, how should we go about to consider changing the status quo?

Removal of statues in the past

As South Africans, we are acutely aware of how unhappiness about statues and what they represent have been dealt with on our university campuses in the past.

Statues have been defaced, damaged, and toppled by protestors – not only in South Africa, but around the world. At the University of the Free State (UFS), it also happened with the statue of CR Swart on the Bloemfontein Campus; the same as with the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town.

There is of course a legitimate driving force behind students’ conduct: frustration about the perceived slow pace of transformation.
  
However, what should also be considered, is the heritage legislation that is in place to protect symbols that hold historical value and significance – specifically aimed at preserving our country’s cultural heritage for all its citizens.

Process followed

At the UFS, discussions regarding the possible repositioning of the MT Steyn statue date as far back as 2003. In January this year, our Integrated Transformation Plan (ITP) was launched, and the statue was identified as a priority within the work stream dealing with ‘Names, Symbols and Spaces.’

At a student engagement earlier this year, the student community, through the Student Representative Council (SRC), once again asked for the statue to be removed. It was clear that it made certain students feel unwelcome because it represented a period in history that they did not feel part of.

I realised the urgency of the matter and appointed a Special Task Team to fast-track the review of the statue’s position. Four options had to be considered during the review process: (i) retention of the statue in its current position; (ii) reinterpretation; (iii) relocation on campus; (iv) relocation to a site off campus.

The task team, made up of representatives of various campus communities, appointed an independent heritage consultant to conduct a Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) as prescribed by the heritage legislation, consulted widely, and gathered qualitative data. This encompassed a two-month-long public participation process.

Great effort went into inviting people to comment on the position of the statue, like erecting a giant reflective column in front of the statue, effectively erasing it out from a frontal view of the Main Building. Seven questions in English, Afrikaans, and Sesotho about the statue and the person it represents, cement benches to invite reflection, and a suggestion box for comments completed the picture. In addition, I also had various individual meetings with relevant role players, including members of the Afrikaans community on campus, the SRC, and alumni.
  
Robust discussion sessions were facilitated on campus, and various opinion articles were carried widely in the media.

As there is no precedent for such a process under current South African legislation, the task team was guided at all times by principles of fairness, inclusivity, and objectivity.

The Special Task Team has now presented the university’s executive with a report, and a final decision on the position of the statue will be made during a meeting of the University Council on 23 November 2018.

What we learned

I have repeatedly been asked whether the time, effort, and resources we’ve poured into the process around deciding the statue’s future have been worth it. My answer is consistently a resounding “yes”. 

Through this process, everyone involved with our university were given the opportunity to express their opinions on this aspect of its future. It was a chance to really listen to one another.

Where discussions sometimes became one-sided and overbearing, we could use it as an opportunity to lay down the rules for respectful debating as a quid pro quo for future discussions on any matter.

In short: The two-month public participation period was a fruitful time of discussion, reflection, and communication. 

A time of deliberate stocktaking on the values which are important for all our communities.
  
Road ahead

Whatever the final decision on the Steyn statue, it is bound to dissatisfy some. That much is unavoidable. 

However, I believe that this should not inevitably lead to division on our campuses. I see the wake of the statue journey as an opportunity to foster a new university citizenship based on the value of caring – a value that we all treasure.

The past few months have given us a chance to think deeply about what it truly means to care; also, to reflect on how we should apply this value in order to be a university where equality, social justice, tolerance, and forward-looking is actively lived out every day. 

A place where everyone truly feels welcome – and involved.

News Archive

Media: ANC can learn a lesson from Moshoeshoe
2006-05-20


27/05/2006 20:32 - (SA) 
ANC can learn a lesson from Moshoeshoe
ON 2004, the University of the Free State turned 100 years old. As part of its centenary celebrations, the idea of the Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture was mooted as part of another idea: to promote the study of the meaning of Moshoeshoe.

This lecture comes at a critical point in South Africa's still-new democracy. There are indications that the value of public engagement that Moshoeshoe prized highly through his lipitso [community gatherings], and now also a prized feature in our democracy, may be under serious threat. It is for this reason that I would like to dedicate this lecture to all those in our country and elsewhere who daily or weekly, or however frequently, have had the courage to express their considered opinions on pressing matters facing our society. They may be columnists, editors, commentators, artists of all kinds, academics and writers of letters to the editor, non-violent protesters with their placards and cartoonists who put a mirror in front of our eyes.

There is a remarkable story of how Moshoeshoe dealt with Mzilikazi, the aggressor who attacked Thaba Bosiu and failed. So when Mzilikazi retreated from Thaba Bosiu with a bruised ego after failing to take over the mountain, Moshoeshoe, in an unexpected turn of events, sent him cattle to return home bruised but grateful for the generosity of a victorious target of his aggression. At least he would not starve along the way. It was a devastating act of magnanimity which signalled a phenomenal role change.

"If only you had asked," Moshoeshoe seemed to be saying, "I could have given you some cattle. Have them anyway."

It was impossible for Mzilikazi not to have felt ashamed. At the same time, he could still present himself to his people as one who was so feared that even in defeat he was given cattle. At any rate, he never returned.

I look at our situation in South Africa and find that the wisdom of Moshoeshoe's method produced one of the defining moments that led to South Africa's momentous transition to democracy. Part of Nelson Mandela's legacy is precisely this: what I have called counter-intuitive leadership and the immense possibilities it offers for re-imagining whole societies.

A number of events in the past 12 months have made me wonder whether we are faced with a new situation that may have arisen. An increasing number of highly intelligent, sensitive and highly committed South Africans across the class, racial and cultural spectrum confess to feeling uncertain and vulnerable as never before since 1994. When indomitable optimists confess to having a sense of things unhinging, the misery of anxiety spreads. It must have something to do with an accumulation of events that convey the sense of impending implosion. It is the sense that events are spiralling out of control and no one among the leadership of the country seems to have a handle on things.

I should mention the one event that has dominated the national scene continuously for many months now. It is, of course, the trying events around the recent trial and acquittal of Jacob Zuma. The aftermath continues to dominate the news and public discourse. What, really, have we learnt or are learning from it all? It is probably too early to tell. Yet the drama seems far from over, promising to keep us all without relief, and in a state of anguish. It seems poised to reveal more faultlines in our national life than answers and solutions.

We need a mechanism that will affirm the different positions of the contestants validating their honesty in a way that will give the public confidence that real solutions are possible. It is this kind of openness, which never comes easily, that leads to breakthrough solutions, of the kind Moshoeshoe's wisdom symbolises.

Who will take this courageous step? What is clear is that a complex democracy like South Africa's cannot survive a single authority. Only multiple authorities within a constitutional framework have a real chance. I want to press this matter further.

Could it be that part of the problem is that we are unable to deal with the notion of "opposition". We are horrified that any of us could become "the opposition". In reality, it is time we began to anticipate the arrival of a moment when there was no longer a single [overwhelmingly] dominant political force as is currently the case. Such is the course of change. The measure of the maturity of the current political environment will be in how it can create conditions that anticipate that moment rather than ones that seek to prevent it. This is the formidable challenge of a popular post-apartheid political movement.

Can it conceptually anticipate a future when it is no longer overwhelmingly in control, in the form in which it currently is and resist, counter-intuitively, the temptation to prevent such an eventuality? Successfully resisting such an option would enable its current vision and its ultimate legacy to our country to manifest itself in different articulations of itself, which then contend for social influence.

In this way, the vision never really dies, it simply evolves into higher, more complex forms of itself. If the resulting versions are what is called "the opposition" that should not be such a bad thing - unless we want to invent another name for it. The image of flying ants going off to start other similar settlements is not so inappropriate.

I do not wish to suggest that the nuptial flights of the alliance partners are about to occur: only that it is a mark of leadership foresight to anticipate them conceptually. Any political movement that has visions of itself as a perpetual entity should look at the compelling evidence of history. Few have survived those defining moments when they should have been more elastic, and that because they were not, did not live to see the next day.

I believe we may have reached a moment not fundamentally different from the sobering, yet uplifting and vision-making, nation-building realities that led to Kempton Park in the early 1990s. The difference between then and now is that the black majority is not facing white compatriots across the negotiating table. Rather, it is facing itself: perhaps really for the first time since 1994. It is not a time for repeating old platitudes. Could we apply to ourselves the same degree of inventiveness and rigorous negotiation we displayed up to the adoption or our Constitution?

Morena Moshoeshoe faced similarly formative challenges. He seems to have been a great listener. No problem was too insignificant that it could not be addressed. He seems to have networked actively across the spectrum of society. He seems to have kept a close eye on the world beyond Lesotho, forming strong friendships and alliances, weighing his options constantly. He seems to have had patience and forbearance. He had tons of data before him before he could propose the unexpected. He tells us across the years that moments of renewal demand no less.

  • This is an editied version of the inaugural Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture presented by Univeristy of Cape Town vice-chancellor Professor Ndebele at the University of the Free State on Thursday. Perspectives on Leadership Challenges In South Africa

 

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