Haunted and haunting statues

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, post-apartheid rainbowism, and the statue of Nelson Mandela at Cape Town City Hall

Bibliographic Data

ID19218643
AuthorsNathi Dass (0000-0001-9044-9124, University of Johannesburg, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-19
Publication date2026-04-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitikon (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0258-9346 • E-ISSN: 1470-1014
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02589346.2026.2643505
OpenAlexW7155562767
LanguageEN
References cited17

This article examines Xhanti Mpakama and Barry Jackson’s Statue of Nelson Mandela (2018), erected at Cape Town City Hall, to interrogate the post-apartheid whitewashing of the figure of Mandela and critique the hegemonic erasure of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who has come to represent Black radicalism to many. I argue that the statue, which in part commemorates the first speech Mandela gave following his release after 27 years in prison, perpetuates the rainbowist suppression of Mandela’s radicalism that characterises much of his post-1994 representation. At the same time, in omitting Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who is present only metonymically through Mandela’s borrowed glasses, the statue exemplifies the dominant post-apartheid attempt to silence the voices of radical Black women and Black radical critique more broadly—a silence that, this article shows, Black South African feminists have compellingly contested

Cape · Statue · Town hall · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · South African History and Culture

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