The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

advocating a politics of militant anger to advocating peace and reconciliation. His life
story, as a transition narrative, was presented as a case study in new patriotism,
exemplifying the possibilities of national reconciliation. 27
Biographic mediations and museum transformations
One of the central institutions that mediated the production of public history in the ‘new
South Africa’ in the mid‐1990s was the Mayibuye Centre for History and Culture.
Described in the early 1990s as a “birthplace for culture” in Cape Town, and a “resting
place for history, this was an institution that focused on “all aspects of apartheid,
resistance, social life and culture in South Africa”. It was set up in 1991 at the University of
the Western Cape and incorporated the visual and documentary archival holdings of the
International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF), which had been relocated to South Africa.
Despite being based at a university, very little of the Mayibuye Centre’s work was
academic in nature. Its focus instead was on the dissemination of public pasts. Among the
objectives set for the Centre were to recover aspects of South African history “neglected in
the past” and to make these histories “as accessible as possible”. 28
The Mayibuye Centre tried to achieve its objectives through visual and documentary
archival work, an oral history collection and publishing unit. It also produced several
exhibitions that travelled around the country, and its members became keenly involved in
policy formulation around the transformation of South Africa’s museums and heritage
institutions. Much of this heritage practice culminated in the Centre’s initiatives in
planning for a showcase national museum on Robben Island that began with the
exhibition Esiqithini, produced in conjunction with the South African Museum. 29 In all of
27 Joe Seremane: No Man’s Land, Produced and Directed by Hennie Serfontein, 1997.
28 André Odendaal, ‘Let it Return!’, Museums Journal, April 1994; On Campus (Official Newsletter of the
University of the Western Cape), Vol 3, No 19, 21‐27 July, 1995; Mayibuye Centre for History and
Culture, Fourth Annual Report, 1995. As discussed elsewhere in this thesis, IDAF was an anti‐
apartheid solidarity and information service based in Britain. It was the successor body to the Treason
Trial’s Defence Fund.
29 André Odendaal, ‘Let it Return!’; On Campus (Official Newsletter of the University of the Western
Cape), Vol 3, No 19, 21‐27 July, 1995; Mayibuye Centre for History and Culture, Fourth Annual
Report, 1995.
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