As part of marking that the preferred heritage of African people is not a “celebration in public spaces of genocidal colonialists and land thieves”, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has introduced a motion in Parliament to remove all apartheid statues and symbols from public spaces.

The party said this included the removal of monuments that glorified the conquest of Africans such as the Voortrekker Monument, the statue of Louis Botha in front of the Parliament of South Africa, and the monuments of Paul Kruger and Jan Van Riebeek across the nation.

The EFF noted that it was confident that all these symbols, designed to perpetuate the idea of the supremacy of white supremacists, would be removed through legislative mechanisms from public spaces, and put in a designated area where they can be observed and admonished as part of a history that will never again be repeated.

The EFF claimed that what should have been a day of deep reflection on the history of dispossession, cultural resistance, and the restoration of African dignity, had been stripped of its radical meaning.

“Heritage Day has been deliberately watered down and commercialised, reduced to shallow rituals of braais and empty multicultural displays by the DA-ANC government, with no confrontation of the fact that the true heritage of Black people in this country is landlessness, poverty, and exploitation,” the party explained.

The EFF highlighted that Africans’ heritage had never been simply about cultural dress or music.

“…it is the dispossession of our land by colonial settlers, the enslavement and cheapening of African labour, the criminalisation of our languages, and the violent erasure of our dignity. That heritage of dispossession remains alive today in the political and economic system that still denies the majority ownership of their land and wealth,” it said.

The EFF pointed out that the work had already begun in the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature which had resolved to change the names of Kruger National Park and Kruger International Airport, which the party said were currently named after a “vicious racist” who sits as the pride of Afrikaner exceptionalism, invasion and land theft.

“Therefore, as we reclaim Heritage Day from commercialisation and distortion, we encourage all South Africans to view it as a day of reflection on the struggles of the past, a confrontation with the injustices of the present, and a commitment to building an equitable future.

“Our heritage is our land, our minerals and our oceans and we will never be free until these belong to the people,” it said.

The party said it was also contributing to Africans’ heritage through legislative and revolutionary action such as its recently introduced Liquor Amendment Bill, Student Debt Relief Bill and Electoral Amendment Bill.