THE Department of Sports, Arts and Culture has announced the decision to review the process related to the R22 million flagpole project that was meant to be erected at Freedom Park in Tshwane.
Earlier this week, Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa defended the decision to build the flag, saying it was meant to memorialise the country’s democracy, adding that the monument flag would teach people about the country’s democracy and how it got there.
But on Thursday the department said that the diversity of voices around the heritage project are a welcome celebration of the country’s vibrant constitutional democracy and the freedoms that must be upheld beyond posterity.
According to a feasibility study, the monument flag will stand 120m tall with the cloth flag being 10m x 15m.
“Over the past few days, the Minister has followed and taken note of public discourse that has unfolded in respect of the envisaged M onumental Flag,” the department said on Thursday.
“It also bodes well for one of the pillars of social cohesion, which is an active citizenry. In upholding these ethos and the inalienable rights of citizens to be heard, the Minister has directed his department to review the process related to the Monumental Flag in its totality.”
The department is entrusted with the mandate to transform South Africa’s heritage landscape by building monuments, memorials, museums, changing colonial and apartheid landmark names, as well as the overarching injunction to heal the divisions of the past.
“It does so informed by national aspirations and international best practice, which appreciates that heritage is among the bedrock of value systems that must drive national pride, social cohesion and unity,” the department said.
The World Heritage Convention makes the point that “cultural and natural heritage is not only an irreplaceable source of identity and inspiration, but also a key driving force for sustainable development.”
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