Let the Van Riebeeck statue stay – for funny reasons

You all know the statue of old Jan van Riebeeck? The one everybody wants to pull down? He’s the same Jan van Riebeeck whose face used to grace our old South African bank notes.

But here’s the problem, or not depending on your point of view. The portrait of the guy on the bank notes and the face of the guy on the statue is NOT Jan van Riebeeck, they belong to a Dutch merchant called Bartholomeus Vermuyden and he had never even set foot in Africa. Ever.

You can see it for yourself online or at the Portrait Museum in Amsterdam. Bartholomeus Vermuyden looks exactly like the van Riebeeck we all know and apparently loath so much, while the real Jan van Riebeeck is quite a pudgy guy with a funny little moustache and looks nothing like, well, Jan van Riebeeck. Some clerk is the old Nat government must have made a mistake and got his portraits mixed up back in the day.

I don’t know about the statue of Rhodes, but I think we should leave the van Riebeeck statue exactly where it is as a reminder of the stupidity of the old Nat government and have a fat laugh every time we walk past it.