3.3.7 Conclusion

kind of intervention opens the place to engage with the communities in which it is erected.

3.3.7 Conclusion

There are so many questions that have to be answered, for example, how do we tell the story? How do we teach the history? How do we deal with the dark side of the past and not hide it away? How do we live in the communities now without making the past a weapon of continuing oppression? Should we be giving up on the idea that we place people on pedestals at all? The pedestals innovate and promote other forms of preserving and teaching history other than stone and bronze monuments and statues.

This study suggests that society has to consider adopting the idea of replacing the people placed on the pedestals from time to time and from generation to generation and having a defined system of the people (for example, civilians, athletes, academics, and achievers) that qualify to be periodically (annually or biannually) lifted onto pedestals in the societies. Such a consideration allows statues to be transformed to honour and celebrate people or institutions for outstanding achievements or contributions instead of acting as memorials.

Contentious historical artefacts must be re-imagined to place them into the present context and simultaneously leave room for future generations to recontextualise them according to the relevance of their times and seasons. The Paul Kruger statue and monument could be complemented by another statue to balance the lack of consistency or appropriateness of a Boer republican standing in pride of place in a democratic Pretoria (Tshwane).

However, with so much potential for transformation, one of the challenges that Church Square faces is merging historical identity with a function that reflects current and future needs. The square is still attached to colonialism and the origins of Afrikaner nationalism through the surrounding buildings.