The Apartheid Museum was one of the most moving parts of the trip to South Africa. It is a powerful statement against the racism and brutality of the apartheid regime. And that requires a brief story before we visit.
Our primary guide for the South African part of our trip had many troubles. He wasn’t very good at the simple things a tour director should do — like being sure everyone was on the same page about our next activity and how to prepare for it. I ended up writing a long critique of him for the tour company — and I hope that he is not used again because I think many of the failings he had are not really fixable.
He was a white Afrikaner, but I tried not to have that prejudice me about him. (Although, in a country with a majority black population, with many highly qualified black tour leaders, and with a Constitutional Court approved policy of affirmative action, it does raise questions.) When I found out that he had worked for the apartheid government in at least a medium-level position, I hoped that perhaps the Truth and Reconciliation Process (about which we will talk later) could have resulted in a change for the better.
Unfortunately, the first night of our tour, the night before our visit to the Apartheid Museum, over dinner with him for the first time, he felt it important to tell the “other side” of apartheid since he knew we were going to be seeing the Apartheid Museum the next day and he must have been aware of how powerful an anti-apartheid statement the museum makes. His statement was, essentially, that Apartheid was a necessary means for the whites in South Africa to protect the economic and personal investments they had made in settling in South Africa (i.e., to continue the economic and personal oppression of the black native population) and to protect their minority status. I was, in one sense, grateful for his doing so because the “statement” he made showed how on this subject — and on some others in my view — there are really not two sides. I was completely unconvinced by anything he said and this view was only enforced the next day. Having as a guide a person who did not see the intrinsic evil in the practice of apartheid was ameliorated some by having an additional black guide for our tour of Soweto and the Apartheid Museum, a very wonderful and well informed man who obviously accepted and supported the changes that had occurred in South Africa in the last quarter-century. We also had black guides added during our tour of the Cape Town Townships, and during the Game Drive in Manyeletti. During the tour extension to Zimbabwe and Botswana our general tour leader was a black woman. In addition a black man guided our tour of Robben Island which was an add-on for us and not part of the official tour.
Our tour of the Apartheid Museum was a major highlight of our trip to South Africa and one of the reasons we had chosen South Africa rather than other countries for this, our first visit to sub-Saharan Africa. One of the commonly made statements about the museum is that that the only place apartheid belongs is in a museum. And as bad as we thought it was based on what we heard during the 60’s though the 90’s in the US, it was so much worse in reality.
Before the trip I had read up on South Africa history and politics (as well as on the plants and animals). My reading on apartheid included Mandela’s autobiography (Long Walk to Freedom) and Albie Sachs’ books (The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, Stephanie on Trial, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, and Free Diary (this last book with additional material by Vanessa September)). Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island starting in 1964 and only released in 1990. Sachs was in exile starting in 1966 and only returned to South Africa in 1990 — having been blown up by South African Apartheid government agents in Maputo, Mozambique, in 1988. So from 1966 until 1990, the information from the sources I had read was third hand.
I can say that the information in the Apartheid Museum from the beginnings to 1966 is completely consistent with the information I had read. And as terrible as apartheid was during that time, it seemed to have gotten worse and worse until 1990. For example, the Soweto uprising, which resulted in the death of Hector Pieterson and many others, discussed in the previous post, took place during this time.
The Apartheid Museum is located in Gold Reef City, an amusement and gambling complex in Johannesburg. It is located on the site of an old gold mine. The park’s theme is the Witwatersrand gold rush that began in 1886. There are water rides, roller coasters, a gold mining museum, and live shows. The location of the Apartheid Museum as part of this complex might at first seem a strange choice unless you know it was put together by the Gold Reef City developers. I later found out that there are some controversies around the location of the museum but it did not affect our visit to the museum nor the effect and accuracy of the information we received.
Outside of the Apartheid Museum are various introductory exhibits. One involves the seven fundamental principles of the South African Constitution: democracy, equality, reconciliation, diversity, responsibility, respect, and freedom. There are represented by the pillars in the first courtyard.
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| Pillars of Constitution |
Following the pillars, we begin our journey into apartheid. The discovery of gold in Johannesburg in 1886 attracted a diverse, racially mixed community to the area. (Remember that this museum is located in Gold Reef City which commemorates this gold discovery.) This is shown by the various portraits along the outside of the museum in this courtyard.
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| Portraits Showing Diversity |
When South Africa was united in 1910, racial segregation become the official policy, dividing the population into four groups: white (European), native (black, African), Asian (primarily but not exclusively Indian), and coloured (mixed race). These divisions are not only arbitrary, but the history of racial classification during the apartheid regime shows the arbitrariness of the actual classifications. For example, as we learned in the museum, children of the same parents were classified as black or coloured based not on their actual parentage but on the color of their skin, sometimes resulting in full siblings having difference racial classifications.
Each of us is given a ticket to go into the museum that indicates whether we have been classified as either “white” or “non-white.” The classification is entirely arbitrary and not related to anything except the order in which we buy tickets. This classification is perhaps even more arbitrary than most of the racial classifications that occurred under apartheid but the consequences for us were nil. The entry doors were separate – although no one enforced that you enter the door labeled for your ticket – but equal because both doors, after a very short hallway, led you into the same museum. Under apartheid, as we were to learn in the museum, the consequences of your racial classification were significant and, in some cases, life-threatening.
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| Entry Doors |
The Museum is, of course, heavily influenced by statements and actions of Nelson Mandela, such as this outside exhibit with a quote from Mandela: “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
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| Mandela Quote: "To Be Free" |
The Apartheid Museum inside has both permanent exhibits and special exhibits. There was a special exhibit all about President Mandela’s life. Many of our group went to see only that exhibit. Since I had had the advantage of reading his autobiography (well, listening to it), I did not spend as much time on that and got to see much of the permanent exhibit as well. My advice to anyone going to the Apartheid Museum is that you allow at least 4 hours for the external parts and the permanent exhibit with additional time if you are planning to see any special exhibits. It appears from their website that the Mandela exhibit is still on and it is well worth your time, particularly if you are not familiar with his story.
Photography is not allowed inside the museum. The exhibits include original documents, news stories, photographs, and video, as well as some memorabilia of the entire apartheid era. It is very moving and tells the story in a logical and linear fashion starting with the institution of segregation when South Africa was unified in 1910 and including forced removal and relocation (including the black “homelands” which remind me of our own Native American reservations), the increasing violence and repression from the government against black resistance, and the ultimate triumph of a new constitution and democracy and the healing brought about (imperfectly but still significantly) by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The tour of the Apartheid Museum lets you know how important it was to have just the right people at the critical time to enable South Africa to transform from one of the most racist and repressive tyrannies and a bloodbath-waiting-to-happen into one of the most diverse and progressive democracies. How fortunate to have Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu (as well as such legal and philosophical giants as Albie Sachs) to bring this about.
The museum exit leads you to the gardens, which the museum says offers you a space for reflection, noting, “The landscape is South African, and conveys the harsh beauty of our country."
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| "Harsh Beauty of Our Country" |
We will reflect further on this history and government much later in our trip when we visit Constitution Hill, the site of the Constitutional Court, which is less than 10 km or a 15 minute drive from here.
Tomorrow we begin our journey on the Garden Route.
Link to full resolution photos
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