GOOD Statement by Roscoe Palm ,
GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor
06 December 2024
In the final sitting of the City of Cape Town Council, the relocation of the SATS General Botha memorial was approved by majority. As the GOOD party, we did not support this motion.
The plaque, honouring ex-cadets of the South African training ship “General Botha” who perished in World War II, is currently located in the Cape Town CBD (just off Adderley Street) and will now be relocated to Simonstown.
As GOOD we acknowledge, heritage is not a straight line, and history is complicated. The relocation of this monument is case in point.
Our heritage in this city is a cord made of diverse strands. The heritage landscape of this city mainly preferences one kind of heritage, one prominent strand – that of white supremacy, colonial oppression. This leaves us all at a loss.
With the relocation of this monument, the name of General Botha would stretch from Simonstown, past arch-colonialist Cecil John Rhodes’ memorial, all the way to our national parliament.
This preferencing of one narrative in Cape Town mutes the stories of the rest of our rich heritage in this city.
There are indigenous stories that are muted. The battle of Salt River saw indigenous cape people repel the powerful Portuguese plunderers in the early 16th century.
At that very site, instead of memorializing that great victory, the red carpet has been rolled out to a new breed of corporate oligarch colonialism in the form of the Amazon development.
We ask the Mayor and this council to recognise that the cord of our common history has many strands.
We challenge the mayor to meaningfully platform stories of our indigenous and struggle heritage, which is being lost.
Our complex and beautiful heritage is being lost, crushed between the City’s development agenda and its fetishization of colonial history.
We watch with interest as to what the city will memorialize going forward.
Media Enquiries:media@forgood.org.za