Museums and democratic education : how museums were transformed after the 1994 elections in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa's heritage may be classified according to three main periods, namely colonial, apartheid and democratic. The beginning of democracy brought into discourse a new narrative imbued with reconciliation, social cohesion and nation building. This paper interrogates the process whereby the Government of National Unity opted to attempt to recontextualise and re-interpret previous colonial and apartheid monuments to include the narratives of Africans. Examples in this paper address the Anglo-Boer War Museum and the National Women's Monument in Bloemfontein as well as the Anglo-Boer War Memorial (Arch Angel Monument) at the Ditsong National Museum of Military History in Johannesburg. Against the backdrop of Legacy Projects, the periodisation and challenge of complex heritage narratives, and the gesture of assimilating old institution into new has been contested by various scholars. This paper further raises issues about whether the renaming of museums or 'filling the gaps' of monuments or memorials is the best way to achieve reconciliation, social cohesion and nation building.