HOWICK, South Africa — South Africa unveiled its latest monument to Nelson Mandela. A new statue along a rural highway marking the spot where he was arrested 50 years ago for his struggle against apartheid.
Mandela, now 94, was arrested as a young liberation fighter on August 5, 1962, near the eastern town of Howick, just months after he founded the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC).
The sculpture is made up of 50 steel rods of between five and 10 metres (about 16 to 33 feet) high and when viewed from a certain angle, Mandela’s image come into focus.
“The front of the sculpture is a portrait of Mandela, it has vertical bars which represent his imprisonment,” said the monument’s designer Marco Cianfanelli.
“When you walk through the structure it radiates like a burst of light, which symbolises the political uprising of many people and solidarity.”
Shaun Kardinal
Johnny Benson
