Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mtethwa hosted a meeting to dissect the feasibility study for the establishment of the resistance and liberation movement museum (RLMM) in South Africa.
The meeting was attended by high profile stakeholders including Minister in the Presidency Mr. Jackson Mthembu as well as Deputy Public Works Minister Ms. Noxolo Kiviet.
The proposed museum would comprise of a detailed exposition of the horrors and atrocities of colonialism and apartheid, a focus on resistance, healing, democratisation, reconciliation, and the establishment of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic society. Together these history elements to be depicted chronologically in proposed structural sectorial content, would comprise the key components.
The proposal to moot such a museum steps from the need for museum content updates across the country at local provincial and national lever to better represent the identified, and urgent lacks, in the heritage landscape and within the broader citizenry as well as the need to address some key barriers in order for museums to better attract South African audiences and young audiences in particular, among others.
Moreover the feasibility study concludes that there is no museum currently that caters to the needs of the RLMM. Although many heritage institutions linked to the resistance and liberation struggle have been established after 1994 in various parts of the country and even some outside of South Africa, none of these institutions focus on the resistance and liberation struggle as a whole. Their focus is either on specific elements of the resistance and liberation struggle or includes the resistance and liberation struggle as one of the a number of components in a broader narrative.
Thus there is a need for a stronger orientation towards an honest telling of the difficulties and traumas of South Africa’s liberation history.
The site for the proposed museum has been mooted with the metropolitan municipality of Tshwane (Pretoria).
Artscape remains privileged to have been the venue host of this meeting and such a crucial discussion towards social cohesion, nation building and maintaining our historic legacy truthfully informed from an objective African and South African perspective. The project is ongoing.