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Abstract
Since the advent of democracy in 1994, the landscape of memory in South Africa has undergone significant changes. While most new monuments, memorials and heritage sites have emerged under the aegis of the government, this article focuses on a private sector initiative, the Sunday Times Heritage Project (STHP), sponsored by the Sunday Times newspaper in celebration of its centenary in 2006. The project involved the installation of 30 small-scale memorials commemorating key moments in the history of South Africa, with each memorial being accompanied by a website entry. The article focuses on the role of the media in shaping a new national consciousness in South Africa and specifically investigates how a new, supposedly shared history emerges through the work of the Sunday Times journalists in selecting stories and negotiating with stakeholders. With reference to specific examples, significant differences are highlighted between the newspaper’s heritage initiative and the state-initiated memory projects, but ultimately, it is argued, the STHP reveals a calculated or unconscious acceptance of the state-endorsed historical discourse structured around resistance narratives, which has become hegemonic since 1994.
Notes
1. No exact figure can be provided due to certain inconsistencies: a few memorials have been produced, but have never been installed; others were installed, but later removed for various reasons.
2. In 2008, the South African Historical Archives moreover published a glossy, well-illustrated, popularly written book with historical background information and reproductions of archival material and photographs about each of the Sunday Times memorials (Segal and Holden 2008).
3. Anderson (1983) argues that the dissemination of newspapers and other types of print media from the late eighteenth century onwards played a decisive role in the production of a national consciousness in Europe. Today, the influence of newspapers has been complemented and to some extent replaced by other media of mass communication, notably television and radio, but the power of the media to shape public opinion and identity discourses remains undisputed, especially in contexts where other forms of cultural identity formation (e.g. religion or ethnic tradition) have been eroded.
4. Officially, Monna Mokoena, co-director of AAW and owner of Gallery Momo in Rosebank, was also involved, but in practice, Perkes was mostly in charge of decision-making and the daily running of the project (M. Makhubele, personal communication, 18 December 2008; L. Perkes, personal communication, 18 December 2008).
5. The memorial was made by local artist, Johannes Phokela, and is installed opposite Morris Isaacson High School, along Mputhi Street in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto.
6. The memorial for Rev. Wauchope was designed by the late artist Madi Phala, and is meant to suggest a ship sinking. It is located next to a sports field on the University of Cape Town campus in Rondebosch, which served as a training ground in preparation for military service at the time of the First World War.
7. Brenda Fassie, the ‘Queen of African pop’, or the ‘Madonna of the townships’, was one of South Africa’s best-known and top-selling artists. She died of a drug overdose in 2004 (STHP website 2008) and her memorial, made by artist Angus van Zyl Taylor, consists of a bronze statue set up in front of the Newtown jazz club, Bassline.
8. Although Orlando Pirates was the first major football club in Soweto, Eric Itzkin, Johannesburg’s Director of Immovable Heritage, questions why this particular club was selected over others (2006, p. 12):Or perhaps it’s a case of playing to the gallery – reflecting the interests of a section of the Sunday Times readership (more than half of whom are black). But at the end of the day, the subject may owe more to the fact that the Editor is known as a die-hard Pirates fan.
9. Valentine (nd) writes about the Schreiner memorial on the Sunday Times website:Despite being unable to confirm Olive Schreiner’s attendance at the meeting, we believe that this little-known piece of women’s history in particular, and suffragette history in general, is worth commemorating. Given that Schreiner’s brother, WP Schreiner, and Cecil John Rhodes had houses in the area, we believe we can associate her with this part of the Peninsula.
10. This is taken from the introductory paragraph of the respective lesson plan on the project website (http://heritage.thetimes.co.za/memorials/gp/RaymondDart/archive.aspx?id=607320).
11. The initial project website (http://www.sundaytimes.co.za-/heritage) was re-launched in September 2007 under the address http://heritage.thetimes.co.za/ after the Sunday Times Heritage Project had teamed up with South African History Online. Ironically, it appears that the information plaque at all projects – even those installed after September 2007 – refer the visitor to the old, no-longer-existing website.
12. According to Muller (2010), South Africa’s internet-user base grew by 15% in 2009, from 4.6 million to 5.3 million. Twenty-five per cent of internet users are Black, 7% Coloured, 5% Indian and 63% White.
13. It must however be pointed out that all eight projects destined for KZN are still missing from the website. In 2008 Makhubele (personal communication, 18 December 2008) reported that the Sunday Times intends to update the website at some point in the future, but to date this has not occurred.
14. Only on the homepage, readers are invited to provide feedback under the heading ‘Tell us what you think of our new website’. As the heading suggests, most of the 13 questions in this section relate to the website rather than to the heritage project, but Question 9, ‘How does the Sunday Times site help us understand the past?’, provides space for personal responses and critical comments, which are, unfortunately, not shared online.
15. For example, in Pietermaritzburg a conference was recently organised by the municipality, the university and the business chamber to discuss the future of the city. Heritage was identified as the least important matter and largely seen as an adjunct to tourism and sports/recreation. The strongly tourism-dominated agenda pushed the concept that a heritage site must make money, otherwise ‘there’s no point wasting time on it’ (Thompson 2009, p. 3).