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After Much Debate, Rabbit Removed From Mandela Statue

After Much Debate, Rabbit Removed From Mandela Statue

From BBC

Once upon a time there was a little rabbit who lived in the ear of a statue – the statue of a man called Nelson Mandela.

The statue lived on a green in Pretoria and the rabbit, which was made of bronze like the statue, didn’t get into mischief until one day somebody saw it.

Why, people asked, is a rabbit sitting inside the ear of this monument to the first black leader of South Africa, the man who helped end white minority rule, who promoted reconciliation, and who touched all our lives before he passed away in December?

“We don’t think it’s appropriate,” government spokesman Mogomotsi Mogodiri told the BBC in January, “because Nelson Mandela never had a rabbit in his ear.”

The sculptors pleaded that the little figure was just their trademark, and a way of saying how fast they had worked to get the statue made in time – the Afrikaans word for rabbit is haas, and that also means haste. And furthermore – you would need to look really hard to notice the tiny rabbit up there on the 9m (30ft) statue.

Read more at BBC