Any statue or symbol of apartheid South Africa is cool, just not Verwoerd, says ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu. He made the statement in response to the furore over the removal of the statue in the DA-controlled Midvaal municipality in Meyerton.

There are only two places left in South Africa where it’s OK to have a statue of Verwoerd: the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria and in Orania. A number of statues of apartheid leaders now lie side by side in a storeroom at the monument and are displayed every now and then to visitors.

The Verwoerd statue was removed by the owners of the Klip River Cultural ­Association last Wednesday. The owners said it was to “their best ­interests”.

Mthembu said that Apartheid is a part of our history and other apartheid symbols are a part of our heritage, but Verwoerd is an exception:

It is not ANC policy to remove them left and right, but Verwoerd is a different case.

He is the personification of apartheid and to look at statues of him is to relive the pain of the inhuman circumstances he put black South Africans in on a daily basis.

We, however, do not have a problem with any other apartheid heritage symbols and we are even prepared to move the [Meyerton] Verwoerd bust to the Apartheid Museum, where it belongs.

DA spokesman, Lindiwe Mazibuko, said that the whole thing is “manufactured hysteria” and is an attempt to shift attention from the big issue, service delivery.

[Source: News24]