Artist Beezy Bailey went to work on the statue of General Louis Botha which stands outside parliament in Cape Town, dressing up the Boer War hero and former prime minister in the costume of a Xhosa man about to undergo an initiation ceremony.

A layer of clay makes the features more African...

He applied clay to the general's face to make his features more African, then daubed the face with the white paint worn by the "abakwethu" (initiates) during the circumcision ceremony which marks the start of adulthood for Xhosa men.

"I believe it symbolises the initiation of South Africa into its new democracy," Bailey commented.

"For me to be able to do this represents the fact that we're living in a free country. "

A blanket round the shoulders and a makeshift cardboard hat completed the transformation, which was part of an arts festival with the theme "One city, many cultures".

Angry phone calls

...white paint as worn by Xhosa initiates...

Bailey said that while he was at work, a man drew up in a car and threatened to shoot him.

He has also received a flood of phone calls from angry Afrikaners, he said.

"This is antagonising people. It is not good for co-existence," said Cassie Aucamp, leader of the right-wing Afrikaner Unity Movement, which holds a single seat in parliament.

...all topped off with a cardboard hat.

But a black passer by said the statue suggest that that all South Africans were "almost the same".

"When you look at the person himself you see the bone structure and you sort of think you see an African person," he said.

Others were more sceptical. "You can't change a white man into a black man." said a bystander.

Courting controversy

The redecoration of the statue attracted admiration and anger

Bailey is known for courting controversy. His most celebrated stunt occurred when the South African National Gallery exhibited three simple pictures which purported to be the work of a black woman domestic worker.

Bailey's revelation that he was the real creator of the pictures raised some tricky questions, forcing the liberal art establishment to confront the fact that race remains an issue in the way art is judged in South Africa.

His latest venture - coinciding with South Africa's Heritage Day on Friday - goes to the heart of another ongoing debate over memorials and national symbols.

Five years after the official end of apartheid, South Africa is still full of monuments, place names and street names which reflect the heritage of colonial and apartheid rule.

Louis Botha, a military leader in the 1899-1902 Boer War who became the first prime minister of the united South Africa in 1910, still has a main road named after him in Johannesburg.

A few changes have taken place - for instance the former Louis Botha Airport is now the more neutral Durban International.