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Moving east from Church Square, Church Street takes you towards Sammy Marks Square. Just before you get there, a left turn into Queen Street and a further left turn along a passage-way halfway down the block reveals the unexpected site of a bright white mosque sitting askew of its surroundings so as to face Mecca. Pretoria's Muslims, who reportedly got on well with Kruger, acquired the site in 1896, and the current building was constructed in 1927 by Cape artisans. The mosque is now hemmed in by ugly tower blocks, but is somehow all the more indomitable for that. Garish Sammy Marks Square itself is named after the founder of South African Breweries (SAB), who was a patron of the city. Dominated by modern shopping malls filled with chain stores, the only thing worth checking out here is the excellent library (Mon-Fri 8am-5.50pm, Sat 8am-12.50pm; tel 012 313 8956), geared to adult education, with every available space decked out in Pretoria's trademark purple. Across Church Street is Strijdom Square , so named because it was the location of a vast and horrific bust of the man himself, encased in a modernistic arch. Prime minister from 1954 to 1958, Strijdom strongly supported apartheid and © 2003 by Rough Guides Ltd. as trustee for its Authors. Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved. Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd. Buy the book here!
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was a firm believer in "white supremacy". Dramatically, forty years to the day after the statue was completed on 31 May, 1961, a structural fault (or divine intervention, depending on your point of view) caused it to collapse. While many would like to see it remain a symbolic pile of rubble, others say it's high time the statue was replaced by a memorial to the seven victims of the random shooting at minibus taxis here by a right-wing delinquent namesake, Barend Strijdom, in 1993.
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picturesmammy says "all views pictures of the complex"
picturesmammy says "all views pictures of the complex"
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