Rising up from Port Elizabeth, the monument will stand 30-storeys tall, facing the sea and dwarfing the Statue of Liberty, to give the world a new carved colossus — that of former president Nelson Mandela.
Modest the man may be but his proposed statue is decidedly not. It is intended to be gigantic, towering 110m over Port Elizabeth harbour to greet visitors to the Eastern Cape.
After five years of discussion the provincial government has approved a R2-million feasibility study to report back by March.
The plan’s supporters hope the statue will be erected by 2006.
A coalition of business and civic interests is determined to make it happen. The National Ports Authority has offered land and the regional business federation has started estimating how many tourists and rands may be attracted.
The site, between the harbour and King’s beach, has been earmarked for a waterfront development and was provided by the National Ports Authority.
The plan’s backers envisage the R300-million first phase will be raised from international donors. Further costs will be recovered from the 5 000 tourists who are expected to visit each day.
The French government will be approached to see if it will pay for a French foundry to cast the monument, as it did for New York’s Statue of Liberty.
The steel statue is intended to be at least 65m high, making the 46,5m Statue of Liberty a midget, and would stand on a 45m plinth that would house a “museum of freedom”, celebrating national liberation struggles around the world.
A 600m “long walk to freedom” — the title of Mandela’s autobiography — will lead up to the monument.
The original design had Mandela raising a clenched fist but some backers’ unease with the symbolism has changed that to an open hand. The figure of a young girl bearing a bowl has been added to the design to support the structure.
Conceived by a local advertising executive, Kenny McDonald, the plan has been endorsed by several anti-apartheid activists.
Mandela has not voiced an opinion on the proposed statue.
“We are quite hands-off about these things. Mr Mandela usually tells people that he is honoured but that he would like other people to be recognised for what was a collective leadership. I think he would leave any decision about the statue up to the African National Congress leadership,” a spokesperson for the former president said.