Monuments to visit South Africa

The Slave Lodge is one of the oldest buildings in the city. Built in 1679, it housed over 9,000 slaves brought by the Dutch East India Company to serve as labour for the colony. From 1810 onwards, the building was converted to serve as a government office and later as the Supreme Court. It was first restored in 1960 to become the Museum of Cultural History and renamed Slave Lodge in 1998. Today, the collective memory attempts to highlight the heritage of slaves in Cape Town, a heritage that has long been obscured in the country's history. The focus is on the roots and ancestry of the Cape's mixed-race people. The route of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) slaves from Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Mozambique is compared to the transatlantic route to the plantations in America. In an alcove, on an interactive light column, inside rotating rings, are inscribed names given to the slaves by their owners: Welcome, Fortune, September, Titus, Cupid, Solomon or Moses... For generations, these slaves, once they arrived at the Slave Lodge, were sold like ordinary goods under a fig tree located at the back of the building, now on Spin Street. Finally, a multimedia room immerses the visitor in this dark and oppressive world. To better understand their daily life, go to Groot Constantia, an agricultural estate where they were largely exploited. The temporary exhibitions are interesting.

In the town of Franschoek, a monument in memory of the Huguenots, Protestants of French origin who immigrated to South Africa in the 17th century, was inaugurated in 1948. The work of sculptor Coert Steynberg depicts a female figure, carrying the Bible in her right hand and a broken chain in her left hand, which then represents freedom. A boat sails towards the tip of Africa and we see, gathered around the Book, the wheel of industry, the lyre of the arts, the grain and grapes of agriculture. As for the three arches, they symbolize the Trinity.

The sculptor Jan van Wijk would have liked to represent here the contribution of Europeans, Africans and Malays to the development of the Afrikaans language, which Afrikaners have long "brandished like a club against their enemies", in the words of the writer Coetzee. You should know that the highest column is supposed to represent Afrikaans, then next to it, the Republic, the terrace being Africa and the column on the left, the West. Come and get an idea on the spot, in front of this monument which seems to be a curious political vestige. But the view is superb..