Central SA
UFS set to officially relocate MT Steyn statue─── KATLEHO MORAPELA 10:50 Tue, 21 May 2019
The University of the Free State will soon relocate the MT Steyn statue to the War Museum in Bloemfontein.
This, after their application to relocate the statue to a place off-campus was approved by the Free State Heritage Resource Authority.
Spokesperson for the University, Lacea Loader, told OFM News that although a date for the relocation has not been set, it is envisaged that it will take place by the end of June 2019.
The decision to relocate the statue was announced by the university’s Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Francis Petersen last year in November after the Council at the University resolved to relocate the MT Steyn to a place off-campus.
The statue has in the past years drawn much controversy with students vandalising it during the height of fees must fall protests, calling for its removal on campus.
The university’s Student Representative Council (SRC) and other organisations have for years alleged that the statue do not represent the values of the university and demanded that it be removed.
Many students have also stated that the statue is a pre-Apartheid artefact, which is a painful reminder of the apartheid sins and has no place in a post democratic South Africa.
Loader has further stated that planning to reinterpret the space in front of the Main Building on the Bloemfontein campus where the statue is currently situated will commence soon and that the decision to relocate the statue should not be considered an attack on a specific race, culture or ideology.
“The special task team – appointed by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, in 2018 to facilitate the review of the position of the statue – is currently in the process of arranging for detailed planning on the relocation of the statue to the War Museum in Bloemfontein. This includes submitting the process that will be followed during the removal and relocation of the statue to the Permit Committee” said Loader.
Steyn’s descendants remain members of the Bloemfontein society with many of them among the university’s alumni.
He was the sixth and last president of the independent Orange Free State from 1896 to 1902.
OFM News
