IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

The #Rhodes must fall campaign that started at the University of Cape Town in 2015 foregrounded the issue of colonial statues in postcolonial societies. Several statues in South Africa have been vandalised in recent years. From a legal perspective the act of vandalising a statue is a criminal offence. It constitutes malicious injury to property, a punishable crime. From a political perspective vandalising “undesirable” statues is regarded by some activists as a justifiable strategy to achieve certain political aims. Public opinion is divided on this issue. From a socio-economic perspective, in a country with wide-spread poverty, the stripping of statues of valuable materials may be a source of income for destitute people. From a heritage conservation perspective there has been dismay about damage to and destruction of statues and other heritage resources. It has been described as an “insult” to the diversity of history. Is it always a crime to deface a statue, or can an argument be made that in some exceptional cases it may be justifiable? In my proposed paper I shall analyse the recent discourses and arguments about the vandalising of statues to try and find an answer to this question.