The Nelson Mandela Museum

“ONE NATION, many cultures” was among the buzz phrases during the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the country’s first black president. Now the many cultures that are an embodiment of our nationhood are adding value to our growing economy.

This is true for the tourism sector, often touted as the domestic economy’s saving grace, in particular its capacity for deadbeat job creation. One crucial facet of this sector is cultural and historical tourism – a dimension with which South Africa is richly endowed.

Countrywide sites commemorating and preserving incidents of black protest and township unrest, the apartheid past, origins and history of black tribes, the Anglo-Boer War, and early history of the mining sector are proliferating, and township culture and lifestyle has also been shaped into a sector that possesses a magnetic pull for foreign visitors eager to better understand its vibrant pulse.

In her seminal work, History After Apartheid, Annie Coombes explains the need to preserve culture in order to enhance the consolidation of building an inclusive democracy, particularly through the use of monuments. She nevertheless cautions against the abuse of such heritage, as happened in the past.

“The confident assertion of the maintenance of monuments as universally a ‘cultural right’ by someone whose primary concern is clearly the preservation of Afrikaans culture is telling. Because of the apartheid regime’s denial or destruction of most historical cultural symbols belonging to the majority black communities in South Africa, this statement poses little risk to the speaker’s cultural nationalist agenda.

Such a legacy has implications for the level of engagement that some constituencies may feel is possible, or impossible, with debates around history, heritage, and conservation.”

It is the apartheid history that is being commemorated the most, perhaps because of fears that such a dastardly system should never be employed again.

The Apartheid Museum is situated in the vicinity of Johannesburg’s Gold Reef City theme park that focuses on the history of the mining industry. It is here that most of the stark reminders of our dark past such as the hangman are being showcased.

Says Apartheid Museum director, Christopher Till: “It is not only important to tell the apartheid story, but also to show the world how we have overcome apartheid. It is also appropriate that the first Apartheid Museum in SA should open in Johannesburg, where at the turn of the century there was a convergence of people for a range of different reasons.

Black people were displaced from the land through colonial wars and the imposition of poll taxes, while white farmers were displaced by the Anglo-Boer War.”

One of the major cultural tourism magnets is Robben Island, previously intensely disdained, not without reason as this was the place where political activists were condemned to perish. Now tourists, both local and international, are flocking to the former leper colony in droves.

One of the political prisoners and struggle veteran who spent more than two decades there, the late Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu, points out the importance symbolized by the island in our nation’s continuous healing process.

“Robben Island’s notorious history as a place to which so-called undesirables of our society were banished should be turned into a source of enlightenment and education on the dangers of myopic philosophies and social and economic practices whose primary and sole objective is the oppression of one group by another.”

Coombes observes that the Islands and other areas which are renowned for being sites of apartheid‘s disregard of human rights are also in the forefront of promoting the domestic cultural tourism industry.

“For the tourist to South Africa with even a modicum of curiosity about the political histories, Robben Island and District Six are two of the indispensable items on one’s itinerary. It is certainly true that out of a number of sites/ sights all equally significant for such histories, these two are likely to be the most consistently packed with eager visitors.”

In the Western Cape, District Six is a major attraction. This is an area from which non-Whites were removed in the 1950s when Government implemented the segregationist Group Areas Act. Now the area – at its height a hub of vibrant non-racial social culture- boasts a museum that uses restorative nostalgia, where interaction is promoted between ex-residents and visitors, to preserve its past memory.

In addition to the Apartheid Museum being located there, the Gauteng Province is awash with such sites of such historical and cultural significance.

The Voortrekker Hoogte, once a symbol of the granitic might of the powers-that-be, is part of the Voortrekker Monument, and was inaugurated in 1949 in Pretoria immediately after the ascendancy of the Nationalist Party to power.
Artwork at Freedom Square

In Johannesburg the Newtown precinct in the city centre, comprising among others of the Market Theatre, Xarra Bookstore and Sophiatown restaurant offers another dimension South Africa‘s fast-emerging non-racial culture. 

Adjacent to the sleaze, crime and grime of our very own Bronx, is the Constitution Hill, home of our Concourt. The area is also celebrated for its notoriety, as it hosts heritage buildings such as the Old Fort prison (Native Gaol) / Section 4 and 5 and Women’s Prison.
 
It is in the South Western Townships (Soweto) that this kind of tourism is booming. Given the township’s rich political tapestry, they appear to promote their heritage to the fullest.

And a fresh dimension has been added to cultural tourism, courtesy of the in-vogue celebration of loxion kulca- township culture. Soweto’s Vilakazi Street is not only cashing in on being the only street in the world to boost two Nobel Peace Prize laureates- Rolihlahla Mandela and Archbishop Mpilo Tutu.

Kliptown, the venue of the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955, has also added the Walter Sisuslu Square of Dedication as part of its facelift. Through the Greater Kliptown Regeneration Development, the area has also become a hub of commercial activity.

Then there is the Credo Mutwa Museum, started by seer and author, Credo Mutwa, prolific medium whose predictions seldom come to pass and widely thought to be idiosyncratic. At the height of anti-apartheid resistance, this bizarre Potemkin-like village was targeted by the youth.
 
In the North-West Province moves are underway to cash in on the discovery of the fossilized Taung child skull 84 years ago (in 1924). A museum will be established at Vryburg, 60 km from Taung to celebrate the area as the origin of humankind, especially the so-called Australopithecus africunus. On the other hand, Taung will be promoted as a hunting destination in order to exploit its vast game farms and varied wildlife.

This approach to economic growth and development is not new – it is integral to the experienced economy model, successfully used in tourism projects such as the Disneyland.

Sello Mabotja writes in his personal capacity