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

Abstract

ABSTRACT 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.