Granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, Ela Gandhi, has called on South Africans to stand up against the wave of ill-discipline that, she says, is leading the country into chaos.
The statue of her grandfather in central Johannesburg was smeared with paint over the weekend.
Ela Gandhi has also condemned a range of recent actions in South Africa including xenophobic attacks, vigilante killings, disruptive behaviour and the defacing of statues. She says these are the acts of ill-disciplined extremists.
“ All that, I mean, it is a kind of an indication of an extremist viewpoint which is intolerant, which does not have the discipline to sit down and talk to people and let people understand where they come from, what they want and so on. Instead they take to the streets and begin to destroy things.”
Gandhi says it seems to her that it is open season for vandals to deface any statue that they do not like.
Gandhi says if the statue of celebrated and non-political Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa can be defaced in the Durban city centre, it can happen to any statue anywhere.
“These people who have the money to waste on paint, why don’t they use that money to develop our communities? Why don’t they use that money to stop violence against women and children. Why don’t they use that money in constructive ways? Do they have the interest of South Africa at heart when they do these things?