South Africa's Voortrekker Monument and 1820 Settlers National Monument: Monuments to Cultural Violence

This article compares two South African monument spaces, the well-known Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria and the lesser-known 1820 Settlers National Monument in Makandha (formerly Grahamstown). While ultimately both monuments enact cultural violence through the veneration of European settler groups,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of genocide research Vol. 24; no. 4; pp. 549 - 567
Main Authors Weaver-Hightower, Rebecca, Weaver-Hightower, Marcus B.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 02.10.2022
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Ambivalence
Cross cultural studies
cultural violence
European cultural groups
Monuments
Settler
Settlers
South Africa
Symbolism
Violence
voortrekker
South Africa
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Summary:This article compares two South African monument spaces, the well-known Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria and the lesser-known 1820 Settlers National Monument in Makandha (formerly Grahamstown). While ultimately both monuments enact cultural violence through the veneration of European settler groups, they do so in contrasting ways, which may make a difference in ultimately mitigating their cultural violence. While the Voortrekker Monument presents an explicit narrative of Afrikaner supremacy literally carved in marble, the 1820 Settlers National Monument features more abstract symbolism and its leaders have long shown willingness to alter and use the monument in ways that interrupt (at least somewhat) the adulation of settler culture. Comparison of the sites, though, show that the ambivalence of the 1820 Settlers Monument may not be enough to remove the cultural violence done by such monuments.
ISSN:1462-3528
1469-9494
DOI:10.1080/14623528.2022.2104023