Liberation Struggle Narratives in South Africa: Museums, Memorials and
Abstract
The 1990s seems to have experienced historical raptures in the world. These raptures produced their unique dynamics and memories. The first historical rapture was the fall of the Berlin wall in 1990 signalling the end of the cold war. In South Africa, the legalisation of liberation movements signalled the end of apartheid. The abolishing of the apartheid system brought with it the transformation of society in all its facets. This transformation also affected the field of memory work such as museums, memorials and monuments. This change also was extended to the renaming of towns and cities or looked at differently restoring the indigenous names of those towns, cities, rivers, airports and other memory sites. This change, it could be argued was influenced by the dictum that, culture is a weapon with great influence and impact in the lives of citizens. This essay is an examination of the auto/biography of the liberation struggle, its memory as well as the representation of that memory through the construction of new memorials, statues and museums.