The Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg
05/25/10
There was a feeling of passion at the Apartheid museum that seemed to unhinge my soul, take me away from the colour of my skin and my western upbringing. History had its own heated blood, a life I could breathe in and exhale. On this day, I was no longer a Canadian, but a white oppressor in South Africa.
At the entrance to the museum, we were all given cards that outlined our racial identification. I drew a white card. Boxie-boo and Choppa-chaw drew the black cards, which meant we had to walk in different entrances, the same as it was during apartheid. The walls were covered with giant prints of black identification cards, forcing us to embrace a world that was once set on fire with racial segregation. Those I loved deeply, Boxie-boo and Choppa-chaw, were now lower class than me, hardly above animals, pathetic black people in the eyes of apartheid, unworthy to even step on the same set of concrete as white folk.
I felt the separation, this burden of hate and oppression, which I imagine caused many white South Africans to feel ashamed to live in a country where their own secret friends had to be treated as strangers in public to avoid persecution from the racist and arrest from their government. The walk horrified me. Had Boxie-boo been black, it would have been illegal for me to date her, a disgusting crime had I held her hand in public, worthy of a jail sentence.
Every single facet of apartheid was rooted in its system of racial classification, from 1948 until 1991. After 1950, all citizens were officially classsified as ‘native’, ‘white’, ‘coloured’, later extended to include ‘Asian’ as a separate racial category. Those who were classified as ‘white’ were guaranteed a lifetime of privilege. As a member of a supposedly inferior race, ‘coloureds’ were consigned to lower positions on the scale of economic and political opportunity. But they were considered superior to natives who were almost all relegated to lives of exploitation, poverty and hardship.
The process of racial classification began in line-ups very similiar to the ones we walked in 1951. In the eyes of apartheid planners, determining a person’s race was largely a matter of naming the obvious - a matter of common sense. No special training or insight was needed, except, I suppose, a racist mindset.
It began with the country’s census-takers also working as racial classifiers, making recommendations on a person’s race, to be confirmed or queried by the Direction of the Census. These jobs were held by mostly local white people, who were often unemployed and usually untrained - ‘raw teams’, as they government described them. Yet they wielded straggering power to determine the destinies of the individuals they classified.
Apartheid’s planners were determined to preserved so-called “racial purity.” Their understanding of race was not - as many historians argue - only a matter of skin colour or other physical features. A racial classification was also a judgement about a person’s social status and way of life: higher levels of education, wealth and social standing were considered evidence of racial superiority. As well, the languages people spoke, the communities they belonged to and cultural norms they lived by, were taken as markers of their race.
By 1966, over 12-million racial classifications had been entered into the national population registry. The result is best described by a quote of the House of Assembly debate of South Africa, written at the wall of the white man’s entrance I walked:
“The white man is the master in South Africa, and the white man, from the very nature of his origins, from the very nature of his birth, and from the very nature of his guardianship, will remain master in South Africa to the end.”
I continued walking passed large mirrors with printed images of people on them, some white and some black, reminding me of the white card I held in my pocket. To my left, I viewed paintings from the 1800s found on the walls of mountains, the only history of early white dominance. The paintings were dominated by the solider, the settler and the gun. One painting showed an armed man herding people and animals like they were one in the same.
The museum became even uglier.
Inside a darkened room, I watched the flickering light of a puppet show of horror. The artist revealed a large white man beating a black child. Later, the white oppressor was shown sawing the child’s leg off, who is later shown in crutches. The black boy then grows up and becomes a man. I walked out, too horrified, a few seconds into a scene that showed the now black man beating and raping a woman while showing back his mindset - his hate - thinking about killing his white owner.
On a viewpoint over looking Johannesburg with a sign that stated the white mindset towards the city’s slums, which were seen to create a multitude of evils. As stated, the slums ‘de-tribalized’ black people, ‘de-nationalized’ and ‘deracialized’ the white population. For whites, racial mixing supposedly led to physical, mental and moral degeneration, of which the spread of venerial disease was a visible sigh. Amongst blacks, it was supposed to promote a loss of respect for whites, a loss of work ethic and a loss of traditional discipline.
Catching up with now black Boxie-boo and Choppa-chaw, my white card was burning a hole in my pocket. I felt that white cowardice of apartheid, an intimidation of black people confused for hatred, a feeling as though a part of myself disturbed me, an ignorant’s fear, and the longing, the undeniable thirst for change, a madness in my heart, to light this card on fire.
Choppa-chaw’s eyes were watering. Boxie-boo face was inward with emotion, swallowed by the blunt truth of the museum. They walked on without me into the hero’s room, the Nelson Mandela exhibit, a beacon of hope and illuminated freedom after a time spent in a horrifying, blunt display of South Africa’s past.
I was fascinated by his life, spending hours in his exhibit alone, which the museum described as having five histories - leader, comrade, negotiator, prisoner and statesman.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 son of Gadla Henri Mphakanyiswa Mandela, Chief of the Muezo who had four wives and 13 children. His mother instilled the “Ubunti” belief on him, a concern for the well-being of others, while his father taught him the importance of fighting for equality.
“My father possessed a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness that I recognize in myself,” Nelson Mandela said. “He was asserting his traditional prerogative as chief and was challenging the authority of the white magistrate.”
As a child, Mandela received his white name by a teacher at school. At 16, he was circumsized as an initiation to become a man. His father’s dieing wish was for him to live with his kingsman, Jongihtaba, the Regent of Thembuland. By 1939, he was accepted for a BA Degree of the University of Fort Hare. He later disobeyed the Regent to avoid an arrange marriage and arrived in Jo’burg in 1941 where he worked as a mine policeman. It was this decision - to move to Jo’burg - that would lead to a change in Mandela, South Africa and arguably the world.
In 1942, Mandela met Walter Sisulu who helped him to become a lawyer. It was at the Sisulu home Mandela met Anton Lembede, a young leader of the African National Congress (ANC), which he joined in ‘43. This same year, he enrolled at the University of Witwatersrant where he later received his Law Degree.
On Easter Sunday in 1944, about 100 young men crowded the Bante Man’s Social Centre in Jo’burg to launch the ANC Youth League, the same year Mandela married Evelyn Mose. Within 10 years they divorced after having four children, including their second child, a girl, who tragically died.
Two years later in 1946, 60,000 black mine workers went on strike. Still nothing changed. In 1948, the National Party won the white-only election. Then Prime Minister D F Malan began to pass a range of laws to ensure the separation of races in all aspects of social life and to control the movement and economic activity of all blacks.
The ANC fought back, launching the Defiance Campaign in 1951. A year later, Mandela became the Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign, mobilising people to break unjust apartheid laws. “One day I will be the first black president of South Africa,” Mandela said to one of his son’s in 1952.
In 1955, the Freedom Charter was launched. In December of 1956, Mandela was arrested for high treason with 155 others, the year the Freedom Charter was adopted. As their peaceful movement seemed to gain little ground, in 1961 Mandela persuaded the ANC towards an armed struggled. A year later, Mandela met Colonel Boumedienne of the Algerian Liberation Army in Morocco.
From trial to trial, Mandela represented himself: “I consider myself neither legally nor morally bound to obey laws made by a parliament in which I have no representation. Why is it that no African in the history of this country has ever been tried by his own kind?” Mandela said. “I am a black man in a white man’s court.”
Mandela eventually went into hiding. In July 1963, he was arrested in Rivonia where he was disguised, hiding as a gardened. As Accused Number One, Mandela was brought back to Pretoria from Robben Island, where he was serving a five-year sentence. Now with 12 comrades, Mandela was on trial for his life.
On June 12, 1964 when Mandela was 46 years old, Justice De Wet gave him and others a life sentence. His white friend and colleague George Bizos visited him in prison shortly thereafter.
“When I went to Robben Island in 1964, it was winter. Mandela arrived, wearing a pair of shorts, no socks, rough shoes, on the back of a bakkie. I snaked through the two wardens and embraced him. The wardens were deeply shocked. And what did Mandela say? ‘George, this place has made me forget my manners. I haven’t introduced you to my guard of honour’. And then he proceeded to introduce me to each of them by name,” George Bizos said.
This quote made my eyes water. How was this possible? I could not even comprehend his strength, a man who respected his wardens even though he was a political prisoner in an unjust country. Unbelieveable.
A photo nearby showed Mandela with a spade in the garden in Robben Island in 1977, which the museum argues expresses the challenge he posed to the apartheid system during the years of his incarceration. The photo showed Mandela standing erect and unbowed, imprisoned in body, but free in spirit and mind, with a steely determination to survive and overcome the walls.
“At the heart of every oppressive tool developed by the apartheid regime was a determination to control, distort, weaken, even erase people’s memories,” Mandela said. “For those of us who spent many years in prison, this attack on memory was felt deep within us, actually in our bodies - the physical yearning to touch loved ones, breathe in the smells of home, feel the texture of a favourite jersey.”
Prison was about total control, the museum stated, with minimal food, hard labour, punishment and manipulation. Though Mandela’s brilliance during this time, was his ability to win over his wardens. In 1973, Mandela received hot water; by 1975, he could play tennis and cultivate a garden. However, his letters on display on the museum showed where his notes were blacked out, leaving his messages censored.
Hard years for Mandela came in 1968 when his mother died, having only visited him once in prison. A year later in 1969, his oldest son Thembekile died, of whom never visited him in jail.
In 1982, Mandela was moved to Pollsmoor Prison, a plan to cut him off from the collective. In 1985 after a prostate surgery, he was moved to the top floor of the prison, further cutting him off from his remaining four colleagues. The same year, South African President P W Botha told parliament he would release Mandela if he unconditionally reljected violence. Mandela’s reply was one that charactertized his prison years - he rejected the offer and its condition, while still keeping open the door for negotiations.
Yet this man, a living legend, somehow persevered and the world was slowly changing from beyond his prison’s walls.
In 1986, the government imposed a South Africa State of Emergency. Mandela asked and was granted a meeting with the Minister of Justice, Kobre Coetsee, who later moved him to a facility halfway between freedom and prison - a cottage on the grounds of Victor Verster Prison, which included a pool, a cook, and of course, a wall lined with razor wire. The same year, the Eminent Person’s Group from the Commonwealth visited South Africa to explore ways to get negotiations going for Mandela’s release.
In 1988, President P W Botha was persuaded by Niel Barnard, Head of the National Intelligence Service, to invite Mandela to tea. A year later, Eric Molobi, who had spent seven years on Robben Island, returned as a delegate of the United Democratic Front to consult with Mandela. Things were beginning to shake and the government seemed as though it realized Mandela’s imprisonment made him more powerful than ever.
Mandela was able to communicate with Tambo in 1989 - the name given to his law firm he and his colleague Oliver Tambo ran - through a secret process known as Operation Vula, masterminded by Mac Maharaj who was able to smuggle Mandela’s memoirs out of prison. This was done by concealing Mandela’s letters in a book to Lusaka, Zambia - the ANC’s headquarters during its struggle days.
In April 1989, Mandela sent a memorandum to President P W Botha and forwarded a copy to Tambo. I could not imagine the president’s reaction, receiving information from someone in prison, almost putting Mandela on equal level through his words, while the president had the power to release hiim.
Mandela’s hope never faded and he continued to fight for his freedom, and in turn, the freedom of all people in South Africa. In September 1989, the all-white electorate voted F W de Klerk into power after Botha had a stroke. De Klerk was an advocate of separate group rights. This event did not phase Mandela.
On December 12, 1989 Mandela met with De Klerk at his offficial residence in Capetown. He raised the question of his own release and indicated that there was no point in his leaving prison unless the ban on the ANC was also lifted.
De Klerk announced on February 2, 1990 that he was unbanning the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizewe, the PAC and the South African Communist Party. He lifted emergency regulations, apartheid regulations, capital punishment and restrictions on the media. Political prisons would be released and exiles would be permitted to return home. In one stroke, everything had changed.
Days later after 27 years in prison, on Feb. 11, 1990 Mandela addressed thousands of his supporters -and the world - from the balcony of Capetown’s City Hall. After almost 10,000 days in prison, he negotiated his own release, paving the way for a non-racial, non-sexist, democracy in South Africa.
In June the same year, Mandela addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. From prisoner to the UN. Each information seemed to unreal to be non-fiction. His story glued me to the Mandela exhibit at the museum, teaching me more about his amazing life than I knew. Two months later, the ANC announced the suspension of an armed struggled.
The first real negotiations began between the government, the ANC and other groups on December 20, 1990, which became known as CODESA - the Convention for a Democratic South Africa. As former enemies sat down to talk, violence broke out. On June 16, 1992 the ANC announced a campaign of “rolling mass action” in protest to the government’s deliberate slow pace and staged a mass rally. The next night, 46 residents in Boipatong were slaughter.
The violence continued.
On April 10, 1993 one of the most beloved leaders of the liberation struggle, Chris Hani, was shot dead. While President De Klerk remained silent, Mandela immediately flew to Jo’burg to appeal to the nation on radio and television. By this act of statesmanship and true leadership, Mandela had de facto become the president of South Africa. During the elections held 17 days later, approximately 20 million people, black and white, waiting in cues for the first democratic elections, which Mandela won by a landslide. On May 10, 1994 officially, he became the first black president of South Africa.
He is a man who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, along with De Klerk, something that shocked me, as De Klerk openly supported apartheid and only changed his ways because he had to. It actually offended me to learn this and pissed me off, to be blunt.
Within a year of his presidency, Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Its role was to discover the truth about South Africa’s past by giving a voice to apartheid victims. Between 1996-1998, public hearings were held where victims were invited to tell their stories and witness confessions. The TRC took statements from 22,000 victims of apartheid and received applications for amnesty from 7,100 prepetrators. Amnesty was granted 1,146 of them.
Mandela also established a Ministry of Reconstruction and Development to reach out to the poorest of this poor. This was dismantled two years later. However, during its time, 700,000 new houses were delivered to the poorest families free of charge, access to water and electricity improved - and schools and social security was expanded. He only held one term as president. Why?
“You need younger men who can shake and move this country,” Mandela said. “Many of my colleagues are head and shoulders above me in almost every respect. Rather than being an asset, I’m more of a decoration.”
After his presidency, Mandela started 46664, to raise money and spread awareness about HIV/AIDS. On January 2, 2005 he announced his only surviving son, Makgatho Mandela, 54, died of AIDS to continue spreading awarness about this horrible disease.
After multiple hours in the Mandela exhibit, I left feeling no longer burdened by the white card in my pocket. Outside, I was able to pick a coloured stick that was said to represent one of his beliefs. I choose blue, the colour of discipline, something very important for me on this trip, forcing myself to stay motivated and write every single day.
“Running through the struggle like a golden thread was the indomitable human spirit and the capacity for self-sacrfice and discipline,” Mandela said.
“To be free is not to merely cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
This was the reality of the Apartheid Museum, a place where the feeling of hate came out so easily, while love seemed trapped in the photographs and displays horror - from ropes used to hang innocent blacks, to videos of violence - until released at the exit. There, Boxie-boo, Choppa-chaw who drew black cards and I, the white South African during the tour, were able to walk together as equals out the exit of freedom.
“And then walkaway free” - the last line of the museum, a present-day reality only possible due to the perserverance and strength of Mandela and his freedom fighters.
That’s all for now.
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