Apartheid Museum - Johannesburg, South Africa
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S 26° 14.248 E 028° 00.547
35J E 600789 N 7097625
The Apartheid Museum, the first of its kind, illustrates the rise and fall of apartheid. It is a superb example of design, space and landscape offering the international community a unique South African experience.
Waymark Code: WMJHZY
Location: Gauteng, South Africa
Date Posted: 11/22/2013
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The exhibits have been assembled and organised by a multi-disciplinary team of curators, film-makers, historians and designers. They include provocative film footage, photographs, text panels and artefacts illustrating the events and human stories that are part of the epic saga, known as apartheid.
A series of 22 individual exhibition areas takes the visitor through a dramatic emotional journey that tells a story of a state-sanctioned system based on racial discrimination and the struggle of the majority to overthrow this tyranny.
Racial classification was the foundation of all apartheid laws. It placed individuals in one of four groups: 'native', 'coloured', 'Asian' or 'white'. In order to illustrate the everyday reality, visitors to the museum are arbitrarily classified as either white or non-white. Once classified, visitors are permitted entry to the museum only through the gate allocated to their race group. (See our 5th picture) Identity documents were the main tool used to implement this racial divide, and many of these documents are on display in the exhibit.
The discovery of gold in Johannesburg in 1886 attracted migrants from all over Southern Africa and many other parts of the world. This exhibit illustrates the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of some of those who journeyed to the city of gold in the years following 1886. (See our 6th picture) Together they made up a diverse and often racially mixed community. It was this racial mixing that segregation and apartheid were designed to prevent.
Between 1994 and 1996 South Africa's first fully democratic parliament, sitting as the Constitutional Assembly, drew up South Africa's new constitution. It contains guarantees of equality more extensive than anywhere else in the world. At its heart are seven fundamental values which are represented by the pillars in the first courtyard visitors encounter on arrival at the museum: democracy, equality, reconciliation, diversity, responsibility, respect and freedom. (See our 4th and 7th pictures)
Our third picture shows this Nelson Mandela's quote written on a wall: “For 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.”
For anyone wanting to understand and experience what apartheid South Africa was really like, a visit to the Apartheid Museum is fundamental. The museum is a beacon of hope showing the world how South Africa is coming to terms with its oppressive past and working towards a future that all South Africans can call their own.
A journey through the Apartheid Museum takes you into the heart of the darkness of evil, and out again into the light. It is an emotional journey designed to encourage visitors to empower themselves with knowledge to prevent such horrors from happening again.
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