Concluding his opening address to the first meeting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on 16th December 1995, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said:
”We have seen a miracle unfold before our very eyes and the world has marvelled as South Africans, all South Africans, have won this spectacular victory over injustice, oppression and evil. The miracle must endure."
The fact that the Voortrekker Monument still stands could be seen as a testament to that enduring miracle.
Earlier that day, as every year on 16th December, an aperture at the top of the Voortrekker Monument focused a beam of sunlight through the "Hall of Heroes" onto the cenotaph 138 feet below, lighting the words "Us for you, South Africa." Beneath the altar is buried a copy of the "Vow" made by the Boer trekkers on the eve of The Battle of Blood River in 1838; that should God help them defeat their enemy they would honour the day like the Sabbath and build a monument to commemorate the divine intervention.
Seen by many as a monument to the oppressive Afrikaner regime; a commemoration of the slaughter of 3,000 Zulus; and by others as the sacred home of Afrikaans culture, the Voortrekker Monument outside Pretoria is now the setting for rallies on "The Day of Reconciliation" celebrated on 16th December since 1994 to foster racial harmony.
The Monument is dripping with symbolism. Divinely inspired - the sacred home of God's covenant with a chosen people journeying to a promised land, the monument has obvious parallels with King Solomon's temple and as a result is said to be rich in Masonic references - some say there is a Masonic temple there, although there is no evidence that the architect Gerard Moerdijk was a Freemason. Moerdijk had been interred in a concentration camp during the Boer War and later came to the UK to study at the Architectural Association from where he graduated in 1909. He was the first South African Architect to be made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Like other nationalist buildings I have visited, the Voortrekker Monument has a sinister-comic quality to it. The staircases to the top of the dome in the uppermost section of the building, (a viewing gallery from which you can look down to the Hall of Heroes below), look like a stage set from a low budget sci-fi film; you almost expect a tyrannical character like Ming the Merciless to glide down, followed by a train of acolytes. But this stage has no "death ray" - Moerdijk designed the monument around a ray of life - the sun; influenced by the customs and architecture of the ancient sun-worshiping Egyptians, which he saw as the model for a new great African civilisation. At the inauguration of the monument, Moerdijk said:
"Vastness is more than anything else a characteristic of Africa, a vastness that dwarfs the work of man. This is not so much a matter of actual size but rather one of appreciation and understanding. History teaches that one nation in particular could convey this characteristic of vastness in its works - the Egyptians."
The foundation stone for the monument was laid in 1938 and the building was completed in 1949 a year after the National Party was elected for the first of its 46 year rule of the country, during which it drove the implementation of a system of apartheid. The building was conceived under the previous government during the centenary celebrations of The Day of the Vow (as 16th December - a religious holiday - was then known), part of a programme to establish an Afrikaaner identity. This not only involved the creation of art, monuments and a national anthem, but national dress and even "traditional" dances - much of which was based on European heritage.
Formed from reinforced concrete clad in granite, the building is a cube of 40m lengths and comprised of three sections, surrounded by a wall with reliefs in granite depicting the 64 wagons formed into a laager (a defensive circle) at the Battle of Blood River.
Set on a raised plinth and designed as an altar, entry into the building is via the central section - the Hall of Heroes. Sunlight is intensified by the yellow glass in the four large arched windows - the floor formed of tiles arranged as 32 sun rays (with a thirty third ray formed from above on 16th December). Some have said the "rippling" rays radiate from the focus (the altar) to represent the floods of colonisation of the country by the Voortrekkers. A central circular aperture provides lighting to the Hall of Remembrance below. Around the edge of the Hall of Heroes is a 92m long 2.3m high marble frieze - the longest in the world. The frieze depicts the "Great Trek" made by Boer farmers between 1835 and 1854 as they left the Eastern Cape and away from British control, after a period of suffering attacks from the Xhosa and a series of poor harvests leading to famine.
After such suffering perhaps it is not hard to imagine why the Boer farmers would find the idea of a trek to a new and prosperous homeland appealing, despite the risks. Rather than one Trek, the movement happened gradually, with different farmers leading separate teams of horses and ox-driven carts. At this time of colonial expansion, they were not the only people to be migrating across the country; the Zulus and other tribes were also moving into new areas after recovering from a population limiting disease.
The marble frieze depicts various events encountered by those who were later named as the Voortrekkers; the most prominent Trekkers are shown in sculptures at the four corners of the monument, looking out across the land they colonised. Aside from the conflicting views on the mythology of the trek or the nature or ethics of the struggle the trekkers endured or the apartheid which followed, there is broad agreement that the Great Trek had a significant impact in the creation of modern day South Africa - leading to the colonisation of the interior of the country and subsequently the founding of Johannesburg, which has become the economic centre of the continent.
Work on the Frieze, which cost £60,000, started in 1942 and the carvings are by four sculptors, Hennie Potgieter, Peter Kirchhoff, Frikkie Kruger and Laurika Postma. The frieze is formed from 27 separate panels each depicting a different scene from the Trek; the battles and agreements forged with tribespeople and glimpses of everyday life. The original plaster maquettes are now on display in the Hall of Remembrance and show how some scenes were toned down at the request of the organising committee - a baby being crushed to death by a Zulu warrior was replaced with an image of a Zulu setting alight one of the Trekkers wagons. It is easy to forget that this was all happening while the industrial revolution was getting underway in England.
The frieze shows scenes from the Trek towards Natal and Durban led by Piet Retief, whose murder along with 68 other Trekkers in the advance party after King Dingaan reputedly reneged on a land deal, acted as a catalyst for the Battle of Blood River. The night before the battle the Voortrekkers spent the night in prayer and appealed to God for support. They vowed to erect a monument to God and commemorate the day of victory like the Sabbath. The 16th December became known as the Day of the Covenant or the Day of the Vow.
The frieze is the largest in the world –perhaps one of the practical considerations in favour of retaining the monument post-apartheid. It shows perhaps the main reason why the Trekkers were victorious over the Zulu's; they had more powerful weapons.
The Hall of Remembrance is dominated by the cenotaph and surrounded by the flags of the different Voortrekker Republics, which were later subsumed into the Union of South Africa in 1910. The "flame of civilisation" has burned in a lamp in a niche on the northern wall since the foundation stone was laid in 1938.
A copy of the Vow, the national anthem “Die Stem” and a copy of the land deal between Piet Retief and King Dingaan is buried here.
Unlike other monuments built by nationalist or supremacist regimes, this is the only one I know of which claims to have been divinely inspired. Of course we see memorials with scriptural references all over the west, but this building is more than a war memorial. In the eyes of its creators it is an altar of thanksgiving for the divine election of a people led to freedom to build a new civilisation.
I am currently reading "God of Surprises" in which Gerard W Hughes says:
"We are constantly tempted to make God in our own image, to divinise our narrowness and self-importance and then call it the will of God. God is a mystery, a beckoning word, and God calls us out beyond our narrowness. Our one security is God is, not in our formulation of how God is."
One of the many fascinating aspects of the Monument is that in seeking to discern an identity and to define their divine separateness, the designers were not afraid to draw on symbolism from European and African civilisations to create a cultural lineage. Perhaps there are parallels here with the way that the early Christian church in the Roman Empire sought to appropriate pagan temples and symbols? The human desire to form an "authentic" individual narrative ends up highlighting our divine inter-connectedness? Perhaps not always, as in the cases of Isis in the Middle East, who have sought to obliterate rather than appropriate.
We all have the capacity for self-importance; the desire to feel special, to find meaning and understand our own place in the world. We may not be able to fully understand the suffering of others but, like the Voortrekkers, we have all prayed to God in our own moments of despair. We must remember though, as Gerard Hughes says, that "God calls us out beyond our narrowness." We don't need to create a new Holy day celebrate a new Covenant or Vow, like the one created by the Voortrekkers and recited during a religious ceremony every 16th December until 1994. The New Covenant has already been given to us, through the blood of Jesus, celebrated at each Eucharist.
In "Made for Goodness", Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu explain that how we act towards each other affects not only ourselves but everything in our world:
"We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: Black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God’s family."
Prayer of St Francis of Assisi:
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
The Monument is dripping with symbolism. Divinely inspired - the sacred home of God's covenant with a chosen people journeying to a promised land, the monument has obvious parallels with King Solomon's temple and as a result is said to be rich in Masonic references - some say there is a Masonic temple there, although there is no evidence that the architect Gerard Moerdijk was a Freemason. Moerdijk had been interred in a concentration camp during the Boer War and later came to the UK to study at the Architectural Association from where he graduated in 1909. He was the first South African Architect to be made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Like other nationalist buildings I have visited, the Voortrekker Monument has a sinister-comic quality to it. The staircases to the top of the dome in the uppermost section of the building, (a viewing gallery from which you can look down to the Hall of Heroes below), look like a stage set from a low budget sci-fi film; you almost expect a tyrannical character like Ming the Merciless to glide down, followed by a train of acolytes. But this stage has no "death ray" - Moerdijk designed the monument around a ray of life - the sun; influenced by the customs and architecture of the ancient sun-worshiping Egyptians, which he saw as the model for a new great African civilisation. At the inauguration of the monument, Moerdijk said:
"Vastness is more than anything else a characteristic of Africa, a vastness that dwarfs the work of man. This is not so much a matter of actual size but rather one of appreciation and understanding. History teaches that one nation in particular could convey this characteristic of vastness in its works - the Egyptians."
The foundation stone for the monument was laid in 1938 and the building was completed in 1949 a year after the National Party was elected for the first of its 46 year rule of the country, during which it drove the implementation of a system of apartheid. The building was conceived under the previous government during the centenary celebrations of The Day of the Vow (as 16th December - a religious holiday - was then known), part of a programme to establish an Afrikaaner identity. This not only involved the creation of art, monuments and a national anthem, but national dress and even "traditional" dances - much of which was based on European heritage.
Formed from reinforced concrete clad in granite, the building is a cube of 40m lengths and comprised of three sections, surrounded by a wall with reliefs in granite depicting the 64 wagons formed into a laager (a defensive circle) at the Battle of Blood River.
Set on a raised plinth and designed as an altar, entry into the building is via the central section - the Hall of Heroes. Sunlight is intensified by the yellow glass in the four large arched windows - the floor formed of tiles arranged as 32 sun rays (with a thirty third ray formed from above on 16th December). Some have said the "rippling" rays radiate from the focus (the altar) to represent the floods of colonisation of the country by the Voortrekkers. A central circular aperture provides lighting to the Hall of Remembrance below. Around the edge of the Hall of Heroes is a 92m long 2.3m high marble frieze - the longest in the world. The frieze depicts the "Great Trek" made by Boer farmers between 1835 and 1854 as they left the Eastern Cape and away from British control, after a period of suffering attacks from the Xhosa and a series of poor harvests leading to famine.
After such suffering perhaps it is not hard to imagine why the Boer farmers would find the idea of a trek to a new and prosperous homeland appealing, despite the risks. Rather than one Trek, the movement happened gradually, with different farmers leading separate teams of horses and ox-driven carts. At this time of colonial expansion, they were not the only people to be migrating across the country; the Zulus and other tribes were also moving into new areas after recovering from a population limiting disease.
The marble frieze depicts various events encountered by those who were later named as the Voortrekkers; the most prominent Trekkers are shown in sculptures at the four corners of the monument, looking out across the land they colonised. Aside from the conflicting views on the mythology of the trek or the nature or ethics of the struggle the trekkers endured or the apartheid which followed, there is broad agreement that the Great Trek had a significant impact in the creation of modern day South Africa - leading to the colonisation of the interior of the country and subsequently the founding of Johannesburg, which has become the economic centre of the continent.
Work on the Frieze, which cost £60,000, started in 1942 and the carvings are by four sculptors, Hennie Potgieter, Peter Kirchhoff, Frikkie Kruger and Laurika Postma. The frieze is formed from 27 separate panels each depicting a different scene from the Trek; the battles and agreements forged with tribespeople and glimpses of everyday life. The original plaster maquettes are now on display in the Hall of Remembrance and show how some scenes were toned down at the request of the organising committee - a baby being crushed to death by a Zulu warrior was replaced with an image of a Zulu setting alight one of the Trekkers wagons. It is easy to forget that this was all happening while the industrial revolution was getting underway in England.
The frieze shows scenes from the Trek towards Natal and Durban led by Piet Retief, whose murder along with 68 other Trekkers in the advance party after King Dingaan reputedly reneged on a land deal, acted as a catalyst for the Battle of Blood River. The night before the battle the Voortrekkers spent the night in prayer and appealed to God for support. They vowed to erect a monument to God and commemorate the day of victory like the Sabbath. The 16th December became known as the Day of the Covenant or the Day of the Vow.
The frieze is the largest in the world –perhaps one of the practical considerations in favour of retaining the monument post-apartheid. It shows perhaps the main reason why the Trekkers were victorious over the Zulu's; they had more powerful weapons.
The Hall of Remembrance is dominated by the cenotaph and surrounded by the flags of the different Voortrekker Republics, which were later subsumed into the Union of South Africa in 1910. The "flame of civilisation" has burned in a lamp in a niche on the northern wall since the foundation stone was laid in 1938.
A copy of the Vow, the national anthem “Die Stem” and a copy of the land deal between Piet Retief and King Dingaan is buried here.
Unlike other monuments built by nationalist or supremacist regimes, this is the only one I know of which claims to have been divinely inspired. Of course we see memorials with scriptural references all over the west, but this building is more than a war memorial. In the eyes of its creators it is an altar of thanksgiving for the divine election of a people led to freedom to build a new civilisation.
I am currently reading "God of Surprises" in which Gerard W Hughes says:
"We are constantly tempted to make God in our own image, to divinise our narrowness and self-importance and then call it the will of God. God is a mystery, a beckoning word, and God calls us out beyond our narrowness. Our one security is God is, not in our formulation of how God is."
One of the many fascinating aspects of the Monument is that in seeking to discern an identity and to define their divine separateness, the designers were not afraid to draw on symbolism from European and African civilisations to create a cultural lineage. Perhaps there are parallels here with the way that the early Christian church in the Roman Empire sought to appropriate pagan temples and symbols? The human desire to form an "authentic" individual narrative ends up highlighting our divine inter-connectedness? Perhaps not always, as in the cases of Isis in the Middle East, who have sought to obliterate rather than appropriate.
We all have the capacity for self-importance; the desire to feel special, to find meaning and understand our own place in the world. We may not be able to fully understand the suffering of others but, like the Voortrekkers, we have all prayed to God in our own moments of despair. We must remember though, as Gerard Hughes says, that "God calls us out beyond our narrowness." We don't need to create a new Holy day celebrate a new Covenant or Vow, like the one created by the Voortrekkers and recited during a religious ceremony every 16th December until 1994. The New Covenant has already been given to us, through the blood of Jesus, celebrated at each Eucharist.
In "Made for Goodness", Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu explain that how we act towards each other affects not only ourselves but everything in our world:
"We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: Black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God’s family."
Prayer of St Francis of Assisi:
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Links:
Address to the first gathering of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission : http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/pr/1995/p951216a.htm
Voortrekker Monument (Wikipedia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voortrekker_Monument
The Battle of Blood River (Wikipedia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blood_River
Voortrekker Monument changes with the times : https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/voortrekker-monument-changes-with-the-times-105986
Post-Statue SA: What will be left when the toppling is done? https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-13-post-statue-sa-what-will-be-left-when-the-toppling-is-done/
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