This petition is calling for the removal of colonial statues and symbols of racist white men and women whose presence across the Western Cape province’s public spaces continue to inflict psychological violence on African people whose ancestors were murdered by these racists.  The symbolic power of these colonial structures has far reaching effects on the psychology of those who are on the receiving end of many crimes that are committed against humanity.  As the people of colour #WeCantBreathe because these colonial symbols are suffocating us in public spaces that are meant to be enjoyed by us all.  Systemic racism is so endemic and institutionalized to dehumanize African people.

The pervasive nature of the institutionality of racism is preserved and entrenched through colonial symbols of people who committed acts of genocide and many heinous crimes committed against humanity.  These include colonial criminals such as Jan van Riebeek who massacred indigenous African people and took their land through the barrel of the gun here in the Cape.  The controversial figure of the capitalist, racist bigot and colonialist par excellence, Cecil John Rhodes in the Company’s Gardens who hunted down and killed those who had the courage to stand in his way as he usurped land in Zimbabwe as his own property in racist “land grabs”, terrorizing indigenous people with scores of lynchings – which would now be recognized as acts of genocide, supporting the colonial agenda to take by force land and resources that belonged to African people. 

When he became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony in 1890 he ‘implemented laws that would benefit mine and industry owners’, and pushed black people from their lands to make way for industrial development.  This was a precursor to the devastating Land Act of 1913 - Rhodes had reduced black people as a race to units of production for exploitative profit.  It is this glaring painful legacy that Rhodes invokes, which led to the cataclysm of June 20, 1913, when the “South African native found himself [herself] not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his [her] birth” as Sol. T. Plaatje writes in his classic account, “Native Life in South Africa”, #RhodesMustFall.   

What about the statues of Queen Victoria in front of the houses of parliament, Louis Botha in front of Parliament, Jan Smuts in the Government Avenue and many others with similar troubling legacies.

We ask you to support this petition to have these colonial statues removed so as to decolonize our public spaces for the benefit of us all and not the glorification of murderers. #AllColonialSymbolsMustFall