A Walk Down Memory lane……. that I don’t recall
This past week I went to the Apartheid Museum. This was my second trip and certainly one that I would recommend to EVERY South African. It has a very vivid, balanced view of the past 55 years in context of a total history of South Africa . Most of this history was not in our textbooks at school. In our presentation on Mind The Gap we state that our worldview is shaped in the first ten years of life. We don’t often get the chance to go and see visually what that was like later in life like you can here……
As I walked around I kept thinking about my age at the time of the event I was observing on the television screen. As television was not around in the 1960’s and early 70’s this media was not seen by me as a child. I may have seen some footage at the local movie theatre or in a newspaper. My parents would have been more aware and I know that their emotions would have had an impact on life at home. I can only remember two negative incidents myself. Always wanting to know why a siren went off in my home town everynight at nine. This was due to pass laws and blacks not allowed to be on the streets beyond this hour. The other was in the early 1960’s when we were taken with to a dance as there was fear of trouble that night. That night I discovered I was a party animal….. danced till the early hours with the adults. Could this have been Sharpeville influence?… For the rest life was idilic. Sunshine, friends, wealth , freedom…… as we always say the best time in history to have grown up.
Did the lack of media and technology protect me as a child from my world view more than the children of today? Today everything is visual, instant and global. We can see and know about so much more and our parents cannot protect us like I was protected. How will this change the lives of the current young generation????
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Great blog Lynda. Thanks for sharing some of your experience. As a young snot who did not live for long in the world you describe, it’s always a treat to get to listen and learn.
Certainly the role of TV played an important role. In fact South Africa took so long to get TV because the National Government was not sure of it’s influence. As we’ve seen, they were right to have been afraid (from their perspective).
I was thinking about the internet v mobile phones this morning, and apreciating how powerful the internet is v mobile phones. Why? Because the internet is free, uncontrolled, un-edited – an open system. Mobile phone networks are owned and controlled, and therefore not open systems. Well not as open.
I found myself hoping that there were mobile phone network ‘pirates’ out there finding ways to free up the networks that control our use of them. Because imagine an open mobile phone network. Free, uncontrolled and un-edited. Now there’s power.
I too was so shieled when it came to the reality of SA in the 60’s and 70’s (well too about mid-70’s at least). TV arrived in 1976 (I was in the army at the time) and the grip on what the public saw and didn’t see would never be the same again – even although the news was so heavily controled. I have to believe that the info revovlution that we have lived through has forever changed the ability of govts anywhere to ‘hide the truth’. Could apartheid have survived as long as it did in today’s connected conditions? I very much doubt it. Puts a big responsibility on those who ‘cover’ the news and of course opens the debate as too whether or not the media cover the news or make the news.
Lynda, thank you so much for posting this. On reading it, I immediately decided to go. As it is not exactly a “fun” thing to do, I had been avoiding it. (Isn’t ironic that it is across the road from Gold Reef City?)
I went this last Saturday and was impressed with the whole setup, but found the experience incredibly draining emotionally. I moved to SA from Zimbabwe in ‘82 and assumed that the worst was over by then. I vaguely remember the ‘86 state of emergency and news reports of necklacing, but was completely isolated from it.
It is something that will remain with me forever and I recommend to people that they go whenever I can.
Thank you.