Lalou Meltzer – 15 February 2023
In recent years, memorials in Britain, the US and Africa dating from the colonial era and monuments dedicated to the perpetrators of imperial injustices have been challenged, thrown down or removed – and in this context the student youth of South Africa of the Rhodes Must Fall movement have been at the forefront.
Incredibly, at the very time that some of these old monuments in South Africa are being challenged, a new variety or, more accurately a variation on the theme, has appeared. Not built by officials or by public subscription but funded by private property deals – specifically in the course of the creation of the South African (and African) corporate headquarters of the Amazon behemoth. Representatives of the present day South African and international financial class of millionaires and billionaires involved present it as a generous gesture – with an opportunist nod to restitution…