COPE CONCURS WITH ALBIE SACHS ON HOW TO DEAL WITH STATUES OF THE PAST
Congress of the People believes that South Africa should take into consideration the sage and reasoned advice of political activist and judge Albie Sachs.
COPE fully agrees with him that "instead of extinguishing Rhodes, we should keep him alive on the campus and force him, even if posthumously, to witness surroundings that tell him and the world that he is now living in a constitutional democracy".
COPE also agrees that "instead of trying to blot out our history" we should be creative with statues of the past "to demonstrate the way white domination had been glorified in the past".
Sachs makes a compelling argument for transforming structures and monuments of the past. He tells of how the Old Fort prison in Johannesburg, through "a sharp and memorable dialogue led to its being transformed into the Constitutional Court. Today, Constitution Hill has "become one of the most widely acknowledged and admired sites of conscience in the country and, indeed, the world".
We can also look at India's approach to colonial statutory before taking any decision. After all, India suffered greatly at the hands of its colonial masters but British colonial statues in Bombay rival that of Manchester and Glasgow combined.