We spent the heart of the day at two museums: the Hector Pieterson Museum and Monument in Soweto, and the Apartheid Museum in Jo’burg. We can’t say we enjoyed it – it was harrowing; but it was good to do, of course.
The Hector Pieterson Monument marks the spot where a 13 year old boy was shot during the 1976 Soweto Uprising, when about 15000 school children (mostly secondary school pupils, with some even younger and some older) took to the streets in a highly organized demonstration, against the government’s new directive that Afrikaans replace English as the medium of instruction. Their objection was partly educational (how can you learn maths well, if it is being taught in a language you barely comprehend?) and partly political (how can you tolerate the language of your oppressors?). The students had a clear goal – to present a petition to the authorities after processing through the streets. But the police tried to disperse them, and what began with stone-throwing by the students and the use of tear-gas by police, ended with gunfire and a number of deaths including Hector’s (but also at least two white civil servants, beaten to death by the crowds).
The monument features an iconic image of Hector, still alive but barely, being carried in the arms of an older pupil, with his sister howling in grief beside them as they run. There’s a gentle fountain, representing the tears which the catastrophe provoked, flowing into a shallow pool of water, representing the blood which was shed, in which sit stones to represent those thrown by the pupils. There’s then an avenue of olive trees, chosen for their symbolic associations with peace and healing, leading across a square to the museum. We were treated to a skilled re-telling of the story out on the square by a volunteer guide, before entering the museum for an hour or so.
That first day of uprising on 16 June was the start of six months of constant protest, which in turn heralded almost three decades of unbroken agitation to bring down the system of apartheid. It marked a new generation adopting a more aggressive response to the injustices of their situation, compared to the relative passivity of their parents. At the end of the museum is a small courtyard, in which bricks lie on a shale bed, each one marked with the name and dates of a young person who died in 1976 alone. Among the bricks were more than a few which bore Afrikaans sounding names: van Zyl, Botha, de Klerk. In some cases, the individuals concerned may, like Pieterson’s family, have changed their name to present a more acceptable face to the ruling class. But some were no doubt Afrikaaners: on the 17 June, the white students of Wit University had risen up in solidarity with their Soweto neighbours.
Our young people were inevitably moved by the recognition that those who had died in this struggle were precisely their age – late teens mostly. And I was moved to realize that I was that age, then. Had I been living then in Soweto not Derby, I’d presumably have been on the streets too. The nearness of the events interpreted in the museum was brought home to us by the fact that Hector’s sister is not only still alive, but works at the museum as a guide. Indeed, we saw her: recognizably the same woman as the one in that photo.
After a brief diversion past the houses of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela (who grew up living only a few hundred yards apart: two such extraordinary men, offering such noble leadership at such a critical time in the life of this nation), we drove to the outskirts of Jo’burg, to the Apartheid Museum.
The entrance to the museum was bold: each entry ticket is randomly marked as ‘white’ or ‘non-white’, and visitors are thus segregated. We entered by two different gates: the whites enjoyed the more comfortable architecture and the fuller interpretation; the ‘non-whites’ made do with minimum. We all met up within a few minutes, after just 50 metres or so of space, but it was a telling start all the same.
There is currently a temporary ‘Mandela’ exhibition as well as the permanent one, so we began there. It chronicles his life, from his birth to a tribal royal house in a deeply rural and conservative area, where the name he was given at birth (Rolihlahla) means ‘the one who will disturb the existing order’, to his early ANC years, his imprisonment and release, his role in the negotiation of the new constitution, his presidency and his retirement. I was especially pleased to see the rugby shirt he’d worn at the 1995 world cup final, won by South Africa – an act iconic enough (because the shirt has such Afrikaans connotations) to have inspired the film ‘Invictus’.
The permanent exhibition walks the visitor through about a century of history, from the discovery of gold in the area which has become Johannesburg. For a time, Jo’burg was one of the world’s leading multi-cultural cities, with no segregation beyond the choice of its citizens to live alongside family and friends. It was only after the Boer Wars, in the early 20th century, that segregation began, which led only after the second world war to a government policy of apartheid. The system was at its most virulent in the 60s, when the black population was subject to over 150 laws severely constraining their freedom of movement, self expression, self-determination and education. Political movements were banned, and ‘pass cards’ had to be carried at all times – failure to present a valid card led almost always at once to prison.
The exhibition is well conceived. The brutality of the subject is reflected in the design: you have the sense of walking round a prison, which it isn’t actually. There’s extensive use of contemporary news footage, which I found particularly moving. Our group was thoroughly engaged in the story – so much so that our hosts had often, at both museums, to move us along. At our own pace, we might have needed another day to complete the visit! No-one got bored or fed up with the displays, even though it was after 2pm by the time we emerged from the museum and we’d not had lunch. We did, admittedly, have a sense of ‘overwhelming overload’ by the end of the afternoon.
After a late, late lunch at a local Wimpy we made the return trip to Potchefstroom, where we’d hoped to visit the Boer War cemetery and the site of a concentration camp built by the Brits for our Dutch prisoners. It was closed by the time we got there, so we now hope to visit it on Friday morning.
Instead, we drove straight to our hosts for the evening meal. Food has played an important part in this trip. We’re eating more than we should: there is a feast for us more than daily. Our host on Monday night was Mrs Mapefane, a member of the Cathedral congregation who lives out in Klerksdorp, about 30 minutes drive away. Last night, we were with Mrs Nyokong and Mrs Makele (two sisters of Mr M, with whom Ed, Tom and I are staying). They live in Ikageng and there was something poignant, for me, about the way that, at the end of a day
exposed to the disturbing history of black-white relations in this country, we sat out in the yard of the Nyokong’s simple township house, as a group of nine white visitors, savouring the delicious meal prepared with typically generous hospitality by our black hosts, and feeling utterly safe under the night sky.PS: Apologies that these posts are text only at present: the internet connection speed isn't permitting me to upload images. These will follow, I hope!
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