Abstract:
This article examines recent contestations over the commemoration of King
Makhado of the Venda at the town of Louis Trichardt in Limpopo Province, South
Africa. It draws on recent literature by historians and historical geographers
in South Africa, Europe and the United States to assist in the analysis of the
broader issues embodied in competing interpretations of commemoration. These
approaches are applied to a specific case study: the recent controversy over the
process of renaming the town of Louis Trichardt/Makhado and the subsequent
erection of the King Makhado statue in Louis Trichardt along with the removal of
the statue of Louis Trichardt. The controversy focused primarily on the scale and
impact of the newly adopted name. The article analyses the politics behind this
debate over commemoration. It concludes that the commemoration was an intentional,
purposeful plan of the provincial government of Limpopo to rewrite not
only the history of the town, but of the whole province in an effort to highlight the
historical significance and contributions of African warrior kings who they felt
had been marginalised over the years. The article also contends that ‘city-texts’
in Limpopo province represent an emerging social-political agenda that is prioritising
towns and cities as places of commemoration, sometimes at the expense of
Afrikaner memorials, and reflects on the utility of the concept of ‘scale’ as a way
of understanding the changing politics of commemoration in Louis Trichardt/
Makhado.
