Segregated museums

‘The world cup will be our chance to make our voices heard’

The Apartheid museum is halfway between Johannesburg and Soweto, on the motorway that links the city with its emblematic township. The imposing concrete structure, emblazoned with the words Freedom and Respect, stands in a natural park that looks like the veld. Visitors receive an entry card – white or non-white. Arbitrarily given a non-white pass, I had to follow an arrow down a corridor to the right, between metal grilles, until the two paths merged again, 10 metres on.

After this, there was a short respite in which to reflect on that legal and mental aberration, the doctrine of separate development. A poster evokes the merry-go-round of 1985 in which 700 people of mixed race legally became white, 19 whites became mixed race, one Indian became white, and 11 mixed race were transformed into Chinese. No whites became blacks or vice versa. Then the video monitors started and I was surrounded by symbols of violence: images of segregation, racist speeches, popular resistance, attacks on crowds, torture, prisoners’ testimonies – and eventual victory.

On display at the centre was a Casspir, the terrifying armoured personnel carrier that used to patrol the townships. The feeling of oppression intensified as I entered a prison-like space in which 121 nooses, suspended from the ceiling, represented activists who are said to have killed themselves in police custody. The final emotion was of catharsis. From the images of the struggle and the sound of political leaders’ speeches, I emerged into a room where a display of current daily newspapers symbolised the victory of democracy; that day, the headlines announced the scandals shaking the government.

The museum is strikingly effective. It provokes violent emotions: fear, disgust, identification with the heroes of the struggle, relief at a moral outcome. Apartheid itself is an abstract shape, displaying both the Nazi imagery of oppression and the heroism of martyrs and liberators. That may be the museum’s problem: the scenario is like a Hollywood spectacle – epic and affecting, but frozen in the past. No wonder then, in that respect, that the song being played in a temporary exhibition devoted to Steve Biko is Peter Gabriel’s international hit, Biko.

The District Six museum, in a former church in central Cape Town, takes the opposite approach. Former residents meet to describe daily life in their community before the government destroyed it. The forced displacement of blacks from this district, with its mixed population of freed slaves, artisans, local entrepreneurs and workers, began as early as 1901. In 1966 it was declared a white area under the Group Areas act of 1950. But until 1982, when the bulldozers moved in and its 66,000 inhabitants were dispersed among townships, including Khayelitsha, meaning “our new home” in Xhosa, children of every colour played in the streets, jazz bands performed through the evenings and people went to the hairdressers or played dominoes.

By bringing this vividly to life, the museum shows what segregation and the bulldozers destroyed: the vitality of a community that refused to surrender without a struggle and which, when the battle was lost, left on its walls the goodbye graffiti: “You are now in fairyland.”

Here, memory lives and develops as visitors write their own comments on the walls, and former residents come to recall the past, to write their names on places where they lived or identify photographs of old neighbours. This process of inscription has become an international reference: the museum was the model for London’s Museum of Immigration and Diversity.

Why are these museums so different? The District Six museum was set up in 1989 by former residents keen to restore their community and the area of 40 hectares overrun by greenery. It may evoke the past, but it looks towards the future and fresh solidarity, particularly with the victims of relocations throughout the world.

In Johannesburg, the Apartheid museum was commissioned as part of a larger deal involving the establishment of a casino. Planned from the top and built at a distance from the city and its citizens, it reflects Johannesburg’s harshness. It suffers from being a national monument designed to attract tourists.

By Philippe Rivière Le Monde Diplomatique