The Silverton Three Monument

“Since to everyman upon this earth, death cometh soon or late. How can a man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?”

In 1980 the Silverton Three return from their country of exile to South Africa on an armed mission to blow up a petrol depot. On the day of the mission their Unit commander is captured; en route to the mission they realise they are being trailed and seek cover in the nearest public building, a branch of the Volkas bank, where they take twenty-five people hostage. The Bank is soon under siege by the police. Research, including interviews and statements from some of the actors in the drama, reveals the inner human conflicts and discipline of trained freedom fighters and tells a story of courage, self-sacrifice, discipline, and the power of the human spirit yearning to be free.

A reminder. Four years previously the three ‘terrorists’ witnessed hundreds of fellow young school children, with only dustbin lids between them and live bullets, mown down by police. They lost relatives, neighbours, and friends. In the years immediately following the Soweto uprisings, the struggle for liberation was setback as hundreds of young men and women were forced into exile in neighbouring countries. The three young men known as the Silverton Three, now trained and armed, are at the vanguard of the resurgence of the armed struggle.

The siege is the culmination of a journey in the lives of the protagonists in this heroic and tragic drama of the struggle for the liberation of South Africa. Like the South African polity, the siege is a series of contradictions: a meeting point of the armed and the unarmed; the free and those who sought freedom; the affluent and the wretched of the earth; the caring and the brutal; the privileged and the underprivileged; the decadent and the upholders of Christian values; those who think they are going to be killed and those who know they are going to die.

By definition, Apartheid refers to ‘Setting Apart’ and hating. In South Africa it was white power versus resistance from a majority black population, though in reality it was more complex than that. Here are three trained and armed guerrillas in one room with twenty-five hostages, mostly white, who initially think they are being held captive by black criminals robbing the bank. Very quickly they discover their mistake; it is no robbery, but a desperate cry for freedom, freedom for Madiba, for political prisoners, for the black oppressed and ultimately for the whole country. During the siege one of the three tells the hostages that all they had wanted to do was to go to university but were unable to do so because they could not afford the fees.

The police arrive. Demands are made. Negotiations begin, apparently in bad faith. Police snipers open fire. How do the ‘terrorists’ respond? Concerned for the safety of their hostages, they order them to lie down in an effort to protect them from flying bullets strafing the bank, bullets flying from the guns of the upholders of justice. Those who obey are saved and those who are either unable or unwilling to do so are killed and maimed. Two of the cadre are shot and killed. Is it not a testament to his humanity, his vision, his restraint and his discipline that the remaining cadre does not turn his gun on the hostages, choosing instead to ward off the police, when he knew and in fact had told the hostages that he was going to die?

The Monument captures the significance of the siege in reigniting the hope of the oppressed. It captures the conflicting feelings, thoughts and prayers of those involved in the event as well as the poignancy of the moment, the vulnerability and the strength of courage of the three.

The Monument traces the liberatory struggle from colonial through anti-apartheid to the present moment of reconciliation and reconstruction. The head is adorned with a war feather ala Shaka, Maqoma, Sekhukhuni and other traditional leaders who resisted colonial incursions into our sacred land. The dustbin lid speaks to the cultural struggles generally referred to as the Soweto Uprising and the AK 47 takes us to the armed struggle. At the apex of the monument there is a dove of peace to symbolize reconciliation!

Material for the Monument has been chosen with utmost attention to form and symbolism. For example the head is the gearbox of an army truck with cogs in it to symbolise the working of the brain, significantly the brain of a military struggle. The angle of the head invokes the determination of those who gave their lives for the liberation of the country, inspiring onlookers of the Monument. The three faces of the head as well as acknowledging the three freedom fighters, capture three moods – calm determination; confrontation; and surprise. Parts that constitute the torso and limbs include material from an earthmover, symbolizing the struggle for land and the imperative for its eventual redistribution. Elements of an electric pole reference lighting and enlightenment, underlining the extent to which the three were sufficiently enlightened to be able to exercise restraint at the moment of their death. The centrality of space in this moment is characterised by a womb-like opening in the centre of the Monument, symbolic of the birth of a new, caring society.

Indigenous African philosophies are infused into the Monument through the engraving of Adrinka and Dogon symbols in strategic places, for example Dauntlessness, Bravery and Fearlessness, and Humility are among the selected symbols.

The Monument stands between 4.5 and 5 metres in height and weighs between 2.5 and 3 tons.