This decision follows recommendations by a special task team on the matter. The university’s Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Francis Petersen, says they are considering relocating it to the War Museum in Bloemfontein, but are still in full consultation with the Steyn family as to where the statue will be relocated to.

The statue has in the past few years drawn much controversy with students vandalising it during the height of protests, calling for its removal on campus. The university’s Student Representative Council (SRC) and other organisations have for years alleged that the statue does not represent the values of the university and demanded that it be removed. Many students have also stated that the statue is a pre-apartheid artifact, which is a painful reminder of the apartheid sins and has no place in a post-democratic South Africa. Petersen explains that the decision to relocate the statue should not be considered as an attack on a specific race, culture or ideology.

“It must be said, where the statue is situated proves a challenge for us as management. It is in front of the Main Building, it is twice the size of a normal individual and creates a level of prominence that probably excludes a certain group of students and staff population that might not have experienced the history in the same way and felt that this particular statue would probably not be promoting the type of university we would like to see”.

Petersen emphasised that this does not mean all of the memorabilia, art symbols and statues that belong to one or other culture is now suddenly up to get removed or relocated.

The university has come under fire for this statue, together with the Charles Robberts (CR) Swart statue, several times and earlier this year launched a public consultative participation process on the MT Steyn statue.

“It is being relocated off the university campus. What the council has indicated is that they wouldn’t like to specify at this moment where it will be relocated to, although there have been recommendations about it, those will have to be tested with the Steyn family.”

OFM News previously reported that the university’s Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Francis Petersen, alluded that all steps in the process pertaining to the matter, as to whether the statue will remain or be removed, were followed and that he was pleased that the process had an academic component, which sought to inform members of the public who Steyn was. He added that the university had given all stakeholders affected an opportunity to voice their views.

Steyn’s descendants remain members of the Bloemfontein society with many of them among the university’s alumni.

He was the sixth and last president of the independent Orange Free State from 1896 to 1902.

OFM News