Sites of Remembrance:Museums and the Struggle for Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid

South Africa

Alyssa Anderson

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AMST 2650: Intro to Public HumanitiesDecember 16, 2013

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This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission's conclusion. On October 29, 1998,

then-president Nelson Mandela accepted the five-volume report on

the unprecedented series of trials that were meant to expedite

South Africa's transition out of Apartheid and into democracy.

These trails were not meant to seek revenge, however, as they

often are after an oppressive minority government falls to the

majority group, but rather the TRC demanded that those who

committed human rights violations from both sides stand trial for

their crimes. Mandela's acceptance of the final report indicated

that this chapter of the county's history was now closed, and

that South Africa need only now live up to the mission laid out

in the preamble of its constitution:

"We, the people of South Africa, recognise the injustices of our past; honour those who

suffered for justice and freedom in our land; respect those who have worked to build

and develop our country; and believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it,

united on our diversity."

But how quickly could this really happen? Could it be the

three years of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission trials?

Something happened in South Africa in 1994, something that

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captivated the world's attention. Free elections were held for

the first time in the country’s history, and a black leader was

elected to rule over a country with a black majority. After

hundreds of years of colonization and decades of formally

institutionalized oppression, black South Africans finally

regained their basic human rights commandeered by European

settlers centuries before.

To many outsiders it seemed that years of international

shunning and economic sanctions had finally forced South Africa

to adopt twentieth century mores. Yet something was happening

within the “Rainbow Nation,” a term coined by Archbishop Desmond

Tutu to describe the eclectic mixing of societies that identified

themselves as South African. The Apartheid machine was crumbling

years before the 1994 formal elections, due in no small part to

the nation's "freedom fighters," Mandela among them, successfully

navigating years of bloody uprisings and small revolutions.

Eventually it seemed they had struck a chord with both the masses

and certain influential members of the collapsing National

Party's government.

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Change was only the result of years of negotiation and

redefinitions, from F.W. de Klerk’s sudden rise to power and

abrupt shift to liberal ideology, to the blood that was shed

during initial peace talks, to de Klerk and Mandela’s joint award

of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. The popular South African

historical narrative tells essentially this-- that a group of

people with the "right" on their side overthrew their forceful

oppressors, that democracy triumphed, and that a country can

suddenly yet successfully transition to having some of the most

progressive legislation in the world today. It has been twenty

three years since de Klerk first spoke publicly about a “unified

South Africa,” twenty one since the “sunset clause” demanded that

the old and new regimes work together to create a functioning

government, and nearly twenty since Mandela and the ANC

officially came into power. No one assumes the change from

Apartheid happened over night, but each group involved has its

own story about how it came to be.

The Transition

The years surrounding the government handover were perhaps

some of the politically tumultuous the country had ever faced.

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Yet in was not in a violent coup or mutiny that South Africans

abolished one of the most blatant vestiges of institutional

racism in the world, it was through a different kind of

resistance. Mandela's government was ushered in through popular

vote, after years of hard work from those who fought to be heard.

Had the National Party's Apartheid regime been physically or

militantly overthrown, the defeated party members would surely

suffer at the hands of the victors, as their refusal to give up

power would justify stripping them of any access to it in the

future. They could be banished from the South African political

scene, banished from the country-- or even worse. But instead, an

astute de Klerk began a series of concessions that eventually

ended in not his overthrow, by electoral defeat at the hands of

so many voting for the first time. It is not the practice of the

civilized world to banish or murder those who lose in open

elections, and certainly de Klerk's special relationship with

Mandela (epitomized in their 1993 Nobel Peace Prize) saved him

from the most brutal of the initial backlash.

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The negotiations between Mandela and de Klerk played a key

role in the "European races'"1 continued presence in South

Africa, citing the belief that the identity of "South African"

could be claimed by all who live there. As seen through such

practices as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the leaders

were well aware of the chaos that could quickly follow such a

momentous governmental and societal turnover. Extensive

provisions were in place to assuage the inclination to label and

to blame, actions which naturally lend themselves to revenge and

punishment. This is why both sides were required to stand trial

before the TRC-- to blur the schism between "good" and "bad," and

to allow the terms "criminal," "perpetrator" or "violator" to

belong to either side. If both sides could be aggressors, so too

could both sides be innocent. It was from this idea that South

Africa wished to rebuild their nation, and from here that the

intentions behind the preamble sprang forth.

However in a country whose very geographical landscape had

been strategically apportioned to mimic its social policies, it

would take more than a few handshakes to undo the centuries of

1 Preferred term under apartheid

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damage done by colonizers. The restructuring of post-Apartheid

South Africa meant a total overhaul of the way South Africans saw

themselves, their history, and in turn their future.

This paper examines three museums that are finding their

footing in a time when the presentation of their ideas in public

space is radically new. Each of these sites challenges the

dominant narrative in a way that makes explicit challenges on

whose history has the right to be seen. Although they are not the

product of a single political party, they are each inherently

political in nature and are part of a larger effort to construct

a new national identity. For the first time, the majority black

population had access to "official" sites of history making, and

need only decide which stories to tell.2 But perhaps this was the

more difficult part. At moments when "reconciliation, renewal and

unification are the key words on most politicians lips," how are

these spaces to tell the story of a troubled past in a way that

fits with the current mission of the country? How are they to

bring to light these long-subjugated histories in a way that

would honor those who fought hard for them to be told, while

2 Ruth B Phillips, Museum Pieces: Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums, (Montreal: McGill-Queen, 2011), 156.

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recognizing that doing so may only split society further? This

paper explores the ethical issues that arise when attempting to

tell a balanced history, and the complications of memorialization

in a society where both oppressors and the oppressed still

coexist.

Rebuilding a History

Even before one empire crumbled, another was being built. In

1990, the newly elected F.W. de Klerk-- the last elected

representative of the National Party-- made one of his first acts

as State President to unban the political parties which opposed

the NP, including the widely popular African National Congress

(ANC). With Mandela at its stern, the party was pulled out of

hiding and became highly organized, holding its 48th National

Conference in July 1991--the first legal meeting since 1959.3

Before even finalizing its policy on Health Education or Social

Welfare, the ANC established The Commission on Museums,

Monuments, and Heraldry (CMMH), as a “think-tank…to examine

3 "47th National Congress-Durban"

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museum legislature and policy set up by the previous (National

Party) government."4

Renamed the Commission for Reconstruction and Transformation

in the Arts and Culture (CREATE) in 1993, the first major act of

the Commission was the scrutiny of document produced within the

museum titled "The Museums for South Africa Intersectoral

Investigation" (MUSA).5 The challenge put to MUSA was to "try to

reconcile the views of a museum sector rooted in the colonial and

apartheid past with...impending democratic state structures," yet

the ANC claimed the report "[did] not even get off the starting

blocks."6 The authors of the report were accused of blocking

structural change to institutions in two parts-- first for

ignoring the “conscious and unconscious ideological functions of

their collections," and second for offering “no dynamic strategy

or major innovations...to counter-balance the weighty baggage of

the past.”7

The official ANC policy on museums was published in

Semantix, the Southern African Museum Association's newsletter in4 Annie B Coombes, History After Apartheid, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 15.5 ibid6 ibid7 ibid 16

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1993. It is far from comprehensive and contains no real policy

suggests or implementable elements. Neglecting the pragmatic it

focuses instead on the ideological, claiming that museums "should

foster national unity, reconciliation and democratic values and

be of educational benefit to South Africans." What exactly that

meant in practice was left a mystery. But in CREATE's seminal

argument against MUSA, they did provide a few traces of what this

implementation of "democratic values" may look like: "reconcile"

and "counter-balanced." True to the vision of Mandela and the

TRC, the ANC seemed to demand not a totally demolition of old

memory and not a ubiquitous presentation of the newly forming

memory, but instead a newly-articulated memory to "counter-

balance" the old. The is an idea not of replacement, but of

supplementation. In the name of the new democratic South Africa,

both histories would have a chance to be displayed, working

together to create a new historical narrative.

Perhaps the most anticipated historical event to be

articulated was that of apartheid itself. Such a site did not

manifest, however, until 2001 when the Gold Reef Casino needed to

produce a "social responsibility project" to satisfy a unique

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South African law requiring them to contribute to tourism and

creating jobs before they could build their casino component

nearby.8 The Museum cost upwards of R80-million ($8 million USD),

but is now its own not-for-profit company governed by an

independent board of directors, functioning independently and

determining its own content.

The origins of this site are curious to say the least. The

museum opened only seven years after the end of apartheid, so the

timeliness of it seems fitting enough. But why did it take a

casino to fund the telling of this particular history? Perhaps

one reason that the foundation of CREATE was prioritized by the

developing ANC was that they realized the power that such

storytelling has. To be able to look into these official

vestibules of memory and see their own experience represented is

a very powerful feeling. To do it "right"-- in a way that

satisfies both those who lived under apartheid and those who will

be learning it-- surly took more money than the nascent ANC had

at this moment. And so the project was initiated by those with

the means, and is now steered by those with the affinity.

8 "About Us."

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The unique design was the brainchild of a consortium of

architects, and resulted in intricacies such as the red brick

exterior to mirror South African prisons and the garden which

represents the old Veld, or rural grass lands (figure 1). Visitors

are assigned a replica of the old South African passport and

enter through different doors based on the race declared on the

card, an element popular in other sites such as the Holocaust

Museum in Washington, DC. Inside, the museum is rich in text and

media, telling the story of colonization followed by the

“resistance movement” and “freedom fighters” and their continued

battle for equality in South Africa.

At the time of the CREATE programming push, apartheid was

perhaps the freshest and rawest memory in the South African mind.

Although the importance of their articulation lies partially in

the ability to pass on to further generations that which they

themselves have not experienced, there may be other strategic

reasons to make these histories known as well.

Memory as a Source of Identity

For one thing, a knowledge of one's past means not merely

knowing what was, but having an understanding of how one ought to

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be as a result-- it is integral to shaping understanding of

oneself and one's world as well. Stuart Hall argues that

“identities [personal or collective] are the names we give to the

different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves in,

the narratives of the past.”9 Identities are inseparable from

histories because they are so tightly interlaced with each other.

If the new South Africa prioritizes telling the stories of its

past, so too will it allow them to shape their current identity.

The question is, which stories will rise to the surface? Of

resistance? Of community? How do the stories remembered affect

the identities of the current South Africans?

One theme that emerges is that of perseverance. The District

Six Museum, which relies heavily on personal memory, opened in

1994 and is dedicated to the memory of the Sixth District of Cape

Town and the atrocities committed there under the Group Areas

Acts. This series of acts, passed between 1950 and 1966, confined

South Africans to smaller and smaller geographical areas based on

race, and in District Six meant evicting the vibrant, racially

mixed community of "former slaves, artisans, merchants and other

9 Stuart Hall. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," in Theorizing Diaspora, ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.) 234

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immigrants" that made up the District in favor of a White's Only

Area.10 11 The museum itself is located in a former Methodist

church in District Six, close to the city center.

Perhaps the very antithesis of the Apartheid Museum in terms

of origin stories, this Museum is the direct product of a

grassroots movement-- the "Hands Off District Six" (HODS)

campaign, which relentlessly protested redevelopment in the area

after the removal, and whose two-week memorial exhibit on

"retracing the streets" of District Six in 1992 turned into plans

for a formal museum.12 The space is almost entirely memory-

driven, historical documents mixing with the testimony of former

residents and activists who were encouraged to share what they

remember of life before the bulldozers. Located in the historic

Central Methodist Mission Church, the Museum provides not only

the history of the district, but a space for those forced from

their homes to share experiences both before and after removal.

Former residents had a strong hand in creating content for the

space, and their individual stories continue to drive the overall

10 "The District Six Museum"11 Here, "racially mixed" meaning of black, Indian, or Malay decent, or any combination thereof as "coloured"12"The Home We Live In"

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narrative. In fact, the large stone nave of the church is devoted

to a giant map of the District, encouraging former residents to

label their homes, businesses, or other sites of importance

(figure 2). Another major exhibit are the “name cloths--” two

separate rolls of cloth-- one where former inhabitants are

encouraged to record their feelings, and another for visitors to

do the same (figure 3).

Pierre Nora understands this need to remember and to be able

to recall as a result of "the acceleration of history"-- that is

that in the current age, conditions change so rapidly that we are

departing from the past faster and faster.13 This is certainly

true of South Africa in 1994 where rapid change was the order of

the day. The further we move away from the past, the more we are

inclined to hang onto every bit we know in the present as a way

of preserving it for future needs, says Nora. One of the ways

this refusal to let go manifests is through subjugated histories

which, when articulated, may become a strong source of identity

in groups "for whom rehabilitation of their past is part and

13 Pierre Nora " Reasons for the Current Upsurge in Memory," in The Collective Memory Reader, ed. Olick et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 439.

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parcel of reaffirming their identity."14 In this way the past is

not merely remembered as a relic of what was, but becomes a sort

of bodily practice in the day-to-day. History is not dead, or

even estranged, but is kept alive in those who claim it.

For black South Africans, reclaiming their past is certainly

key to who they are today, and museums such as District Six are

an important element for telling these stories. In the opening

weeks of the District Six Museum, a banner hung that read "In

this exhibition we do not wish to recreate District Six as much

as repossess the history of the area, as a place where people

lived, loved and struggled. It is an attempt to take back out

right to signpost our lives with those things we hold dear...The

exhibition is also about pointers to our future. We, all if us,

need to decide how as individuals and as people we wish to

retrace and re-signpost the lines of our future."15 From the very

beginning it was understood that the decisions made about the

past in the contemporary moment would have huge effects on the

future as well. Exactly what those effects would be were still to

come.

14 ibid15 Coombes, History after Apartheid, 120

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Memory and Power

When the ANC quickly prioritized the organization of the

CMMH, it was not merely in the name of remembrance for

remembrance sake. Indeed, the uproar over the MUSA report was

more than just a battle of whose history can be told, but a

battle of whose ideology could be legitimated. This explains both

the ANC's quick response to assemble a commission in charge of

regulating the new cultural sentiment, and the emphasis the

waning National Party government put on maintaining the old. It

is because both sides recognized "the ideological leverage that

such institutions potentially provide," that competition for

visibility ensued.16

One of the most contested areas of land was Robben Island,

located off the western coast of Cape Town, itself having a long

and sorted use by the various governments of South Africa's past.

The island has a central place in the country's history as a

holding place for “those they regard as political troublemakers

or social outcasts."17 Over the past 400 years the site has been

home to slaves, indigenous leaders who resisted British

16 Coombes, History After Apartheid, 1717 “Robben Island” brochure

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colonization, lepers, the mentally ill, prisoners of war, and

most recently (and most famously) as a high security prison for

those who opposed the Apartheid regime, including Nelson Mandela

himself. As negations progressed and the release of non-violent

political prisoners, including Mandela, was pushed through under

the same 1990 law that unbanned the ANC, the prison was emptied

and although still owned by the South African Government, lay

feral until 1993.

With the future of the island unclear, an organization

called “Peace Visions” stepped in and, after conducting six

months of interviews with a plethora of concerned parties

including NGOs , the Cape Provincial Administration, the Anglican

Church, and even ex-prisoners, made recommendations on what

should happen to the island next.18 Some of Peace Vision's

observations were that "there was nevertheless some agreement

among certain parties that the 'social, cultural, and political

history of the island should be protected.'"19 The report also

suggested that "collective decision making was also deemed

18 Cecilia Margareta Olofsdotter Rodehn, "Lost in Transformation:, A Critical Study of two South African Museums" (PhD diss, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008)19 Coombes, History After Apartheid, 57

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desirable...so that the responsibility of the island was

understood as involving 'interest groups, the new government, the

state, and regional governments. No unilateral decision can be

taken about the future of the island and any decision should

involve grassroots communities as well.'"20 And with that, the

hopes and aspirations for Robben Island were summarized in what

was perhaps the purist form of the new South African Democracy--

a site which remained true to its history while simultaneously

acknowledging the demands put on it in the modern age.

The result was the Robben Island Museum, opened in 1997 and

named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Visitors are

transported to the island by ferries departing from the historic

Victoria and Albert Waterfront and receive a tour in two parts:

first a tour of the island from a guide and then of the prison

itself from an actual ex-prisoner, where Nelson Mandela's prison

cell continues to be preserved “intact” and is a highlight of the

tour.

When the Robben Island Museum open to visitors on Jan 1,

1997, it found out exactly how hard the implementation of such a

20 ibid

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democratic vision would be, juggling multiple interests ranging

from government to former prisoners to nature conservationist.21

Involving the voices and needs of so many groups inherently

requires a prioritization of demands, in which clear winners will

eventually surface. Those who ultimately come out on top possess

immense political clout, having won the right to be displayed at

a site which holds such an pivotal place in South African

history. Moreover, since the land was still government owned, and

the country had only had its boarders re-opened for three years,

Robben Island was also designed to e a prominent tourist

destination, as a way to both stimulate its new economy and to

show off its new democracy, as the very act of commemorating this

past in a museum signifies that the country has moved beyond it.

The battle for Robben Island was not unlike the battle of

District Six-- it laid claims to certain sites as important

physical vestibules of the nation's past, worth preserving and

protecting. For the South African groups on the verge of

independence, being able to see their past in places such as

these was not only a way to affirm identity but also a way to

21 ibid, 65

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procure power and to alter the dominant narrative. Access to this

form of memory making is important because, as Foucault tells us,

"since memory is actually a very important factor in

struggle...if one controls people’s memory, one controls their

dynamism.”22 The fight for space at District Six and Robben

Island, as well as the right to narrative at the Apartheid

Museum, were all part of a larger movement to carve out

legitimacy for the new, black South African led governments.

Each of these sites, as a manifestation of the new culture

and heritage policies meant to further democratize South Africa,

fundamentally serves a purpose not just to those whose memories

it preserves, but also to progress the cause of the rising

government. None of these sites comes without its own strange

politics--whether it's the product or a casino's debt or of

trying to appease many groups at once--yet each site remains

crucial to (re)building memory. "Fundamentally dialectic,"

Huyssen tells us, "the museum serves both as a burial chamber of

the past...and as a site of possible resurrections, however

22 Jeffrey K Olick, and Joyce Robbins, "Social Memory Studies: From "Collective Memory" to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices," Annual Review of Sociology,, 24 (1998): 126.

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mediated and contaminated, in the eyes of the beholder." It was

an epidemic of resurrections that befell South Africa in the mid-

1990s, and not one that was without consequences.

The Complications of History Making

Them impetus for the extensive work of Peace Visions was an

unusual exhibition titled “Esiqithini” (“on the Island” in Xhosa

and Zulu). A joint 1993 endeavor by the South African Museum

(SAM) in Cape Town, and the Mayibuye Centre, an independent

achieve of written and visual material from the liberation

struggle, it was one of the first collaborations of its kind. The

exhibition was staged as "an opportunity to learn more about the

history of the island and the enable [guest] to participate in

discussions about its future."23 The bulk of the exhibition space

was devoted to recounting the various uses of the island, but

especially its use as a high security political prison. Displayed

here were artifacts of former prisoners on loan from Mayibuye, as

well as the stories of hardship that accompanied them. Almost

23 Coombes, History After Apartheid, 62

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inevitably Mandela became a symbolic figurehead of the show,

standing in "for all who were imprisoned" and appearing, as SAM

associate director Patricia Davison herself recalls in hindsight

"almost too frequently."

This exhibition is worth a momentary detour for two reasons.

First, it was perhaps one of the first attempts of a nationally

recognized site of memory to display these kind of subjugated

histories, to humanize the island. Second, they kept a comment

book which is an invaluable lens into some of the first reactions

to such a site. Among these comments are things like “It looks

more like a propaganda stunt…to promote Nelson Mandela

(President- Voting Time) NB!!” and “Very biased. Are you

promoting the ANC?” and "Were ANC members the only political

prisoners on the island? If not, why are the other prisoner's

views not expressed?"24

To no one's surprise, the "supplemental" history of ANC

policy would prove a grave challenge to implement. South African

memory up to that point had consisted mainly of two time periods:

life under colonial rule of primarily the Dutch and British as

24 ibid, 63

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early as the 17th century, and life under apartheid rule, when

the National Party came to power in 1948. These time periods had

their own heroes, their own victors, their own sense of

celebration derived from accomplishments that in the new

"democratic" South Africa could never be seen as such. How then,

were these histories to stand alongside each other?

The problem is that one simply cannot "counter-balance" a

narrative by providing a different account of the same events--

apartheid from a victim's view, District Six through the eyes of

someone who was forcibly removed, or an account of Robben Island

by one formerly imprisoned there. These are not a "supplementary

memories," but what Foucault called "counter-memories," ones which

are "an individual’s resistance against the official versions of

historical continuity." The intention of telling such stories is

not only to provide an alternative few of history, but to rupture

the current one by destroying its continuity, its idea of what it

means to "progress" as a society-- and in doing so essentially

negate it.

Why is it then, that both the national and international

communities should latch on to this new narrative over the old,

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allowing the story to be changed? A simple explanation could be

that the sheer number of people who lived the subjugated

histories being brought to light meant that more people could

identify with this new telling. But something more lies in the

power of these counter-memories. It is Hayden White who speaks of

memories as stories, explaining that narrative "naturally" lends

itself to being a mode of interpreting historical phenomenon

because it is seen as containing "neutral facts" and "'real' or

'lived' stories which have only to be uncovered or extracted from

the evidence to be understood as truth."25 If it is individuals'

stories that make up the collective "truth," then these new

museums were correct in basing so much of their content around

personal testimonies.

Beyond this, however, the idea of "history as narrative"

affects other ways it is able to be recounted. For one, making

something into a narrative implies that it is also given the

accompanying elements of a story-- "modes, symbols, plot-types,

and genres our culture provides for making sense of such an

25 Hayden White, “Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth” in "Probing theLimits of Representation: Nazism and the “Final Solution." ed. Saul Friedlander (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 37.

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extreme past."26 That is, in an effort to understand to

unbelievable, we process our memories into familiar frames of

very literal stories, falling into familiar patterns of

characters, story-arcs, and resolutions. The retelling of South

Africa's past is no exception, and the process of first

understanding and then teaching it takes on story-like

characteristics as well.

Hayden White is concerned with this question ultimately

because he feels it limits the kinds of "emplotments" the

history/narrative can have, defining certain ways it "can" or

"cannot" be told, as "manifesting only one story, as being

emplottable in only one way, and as signifying only one kind of

meaning."27 After all, notice that even the constitution's

preamble acknowledges both "those who suffered for justice and

freedom in our land" and " those who have worked to build and

develop our country." Yet the story of South Africa is ultimately

a narrative of triumph, of the underdog group of freedom fighters

over throwing a powerful regime. As this story is pushed through

the sieve of common tropes, it takes on a shape that reinforces

26 ibid27 ibid, 38

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support for the new democratic South Africa, establishing a new

cannon of victories and recasting a set of villains and heroes.

Hence we are told to keep our "Hands Off District Six," while

Robben Island celebrates the "triumph of the human spirit."28

The new stories were told by touching on themes that were

not only familiar-- oppression, democracy, and racism-- by themes

which much of the world had already developed strong opinions and

feelings about. National and international support for the new

narrative quickly snowballed. Composing a narrative around these

themes did indeed, as Hayden White surmised, control how they

could be talked about-- no one was about to make excuses for the

apartheid regime, and no one was ready to be sympathetic to the

failing National Party. It was in the casting of characters for

these new stories where this became most clear. As new binaries

"heroes" and "villains" emerged, the NP were the biggest losers.

Although perhaps unsurprising, the most problematic element

of this villainization was that the National Party was one that

became portrayed not merely along political lines, but along

racial lines. Although not every Afrikaner was an NP member, and

28 Island motto

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neither were all white South Africans Afrikaners, the privileges

provided by the apartheid regime were extended to all members of

the white race regardless of affiliation. When the tables turned,

then, so too were they allied with this group-- this time as

perpetrators. Although not assailants themselves, they were

guilty by virtue of association in a country whose new narrative

elements stressed race as a source of access and power above all

other forms of identity.

The new museums, as a source of ideological power, become

problematic when they allow this conflation to persist,

fulfilling the expectations of the narrative by oversimplifying

the textured groups of resistance that existed under apartheid,

and the ambivalence no doubt experienced by many white South

Africans to the controversial policies. At the time I visited the

Apartheid Museum in March of 2009, the rotating exhibit was of

Helen Suzman, a white human rights activist who helped organize

in all-black prisons and townships (figure 4). The exhibit,

however, stood separate from the rest of the museum, whose

treatment of the arrival of white colonizers and

characterizations of the Afrikaner Voortrekkers were less

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favorable, all of whoms history was grouped under the heading of

"Segregation," a catch-all term for white settlers' appearance in

the country. Although the presence of Suzman is significant, she

is portrayed as the exception, not the rule, and her historical

visits remain a fete many white South Africans would not attempt

in the present day. The other two museums make no explicit

attempt at identifying any categories of victims or perpetrators

outside of the expected color lines, with Robben Island guards

portrayed as white and prisoners as black, District Six residents

as racially mixed, destroyed at hand of a white government.

The Trouble with Forgetting

And so the new national narrative began to take shape. The

counter-memory gains traction and within a matter of years

becomes the dominant memory. Does this truly "counter-balance"

then? Or does it merely supply a different, albeit still single-

dimensional account of the nation's history? What is lost by in

the naming of some peoples as good, others as bad, and in doing

so labeling their actions the same? Most importantly, does this

reconcile or reinforce racial divisions in South Africa?

Anderson 30

There is a danger in defining a country's history through

its darkest days, especially if those it demonizes are expected

to coexist in the present with those it labels as the persecuted.

To continue to speak of race and politics as inseparably entwined

is to perpetuate the fissures in society it causes. In the name

of truly abandoning this past, in reinventing itself as a

democratic country, and in moving forward as a unified nation--

why can't South Africans just, forget?

In his article "Seven Types of Forgetting," Paul Connerton

points out that although "forgetting" is generally seen as a

failure, this is not always true. There are several reasons that

forgetting could be intentional because it is in some way

beneficial to the individual or group to do so. He lists seven

sets of circumstances in which people may consciously forget,

three of which seem like reasonable possibilities for South

Africa's situation. The second is what he calls "Prescriptive

Forgetting," or circumstances in which "it is believed to be in

the interest of all parties to the previous dispute" to do so.29

This seems ideal for South Africa, a nation which has in every

29Paul Connerton, "Seven Types of Forgetting," Memory Studies, 59, no. 1 (2008): 62

Anderson 31

way explicitly indicated the desire to re-imagine itself as an

egalitarian nation.

Yet the problem here is two-fold. First, the event is still

within living memory, and asking a person who lived through

apartheid to just forget it is asking them to deny a large piece

of their history. Second, as with ever country who touts the

promise of "never again," there is a lingering fear that to

forget will not be to forgive, but rather will be a denying of

the lessons of the past that makes one vulnerable to their cycle

of repetition. In order for this type of forgetting to work all

affected parties must agree it is the best choice, and this fear

is that keeps many South Africans from being ready to commit.

Connerton also explore the idea of "Forgetting Which is

Constitutive to a New Identity" suggesting the appeal of being

able to shed memories in the name of creating a new identity for

oneself.30 It may make sense then that in an effort to redefining

itself, some memories which no longer make up the country's

identity may be disposed of in the interest of making new ones.

Yet since the initial narratives that emerged were about

30 ibid

Anderson 32

supplementing missing memory and not about establishing equality,

the initial thrust of the identity creation lent itself much more

to defining differences than it did to commonalities. Under the

new terms of "freedom fighters" and "survivors," the heroes of

the new narrative became lauded for the accomplishments of their

resistance. What would the incentive be in surrendering this

ethos in exchange for one which merely brought them onto the same

level as their former oppressors?

Connerton offers a final possible chance to forget through

"Humiliated Silence," stating that "in the collusive silence

brought on by a particular kind of collective shame, there is

detectible both a desire to forget and sometimes the actual

effect of forgetting."31 The shame in South Africa comes from

being a country most notoriously known for its years of human

rights violations under apartheid, and the very geography of the

country is riddled with sites that remind one of the county's

unjust past. One solutions, then, would be to tear down these

monuments to the old regime, considered an "embarrassment to

their government," in an effort to physically erase it from

31 ibid, 67

Anderson 33

memory. Yet within each of these sites is also the potential to

reclaim the memory, "to rise phoenixlike from the very literal

ashes and debris," and to turn the site into a palpable site of

change.32 To do this, however, the site must acknowledge both the

past and the present, "the history of total destruction and

dehumanization and the triumph of the human spirit" if it is to

show how far the country has come.33 South Africa has chosen to

reclaim its memories, and in so doing has re-attached itself to

the atrocities of its past for as long as it chooses to emphasize

its recovery from apartheid as a key feature of its national

identity.

Looking Toward the Future

South African museums have come a long way since the MUSA

report. These three museums-- The Apartheid Museum, District Six

Museum and Robben Island Museum-- have become key historic sites,

as well as tourist attractions, for the country. As South Africa

reinvents itself as a democracy, the challenge of facing its past

becomes integral to the construction of its new identity.

32 ibid. 6933 ibid

Anderson 34

This year marked the passing of the Nelson Mandela, the

cultural figurehead of the country who had fought so hard to set

it on its new trajectory. His memory and his mission hang heavily

over the ANC in its current incarnation, his name is still on the

lips of those involved in the political process. Will his vision

for a truly equal South Africa ever really materialize? Or will

the country choose to continue speaking of itself in racial

binaries? South Africa is not ready to simple gloss over the

atrocities of its past, even if it is in the name of a unified

future, and must instead learn to speak of its past in ways that

allow its citizens to thrive in the future.

Anderson 35

figure 1

Anderson 36

figure 2

(figure 3)

Anderson 37

(figure 4)

Bibliography

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Cecilia Margareta Olofsdotter Rodehn, "Lost in Transformation:, A Critical Study of two South African Museums" PhD diss, Universityof KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

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Anderson 38

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