The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

“the president deserves a better monument. So does the country, and so does the
embodiment of the concept of freedom”. 94 Although this was a controversial case, fuelled
by debate over the language, aesthetics and process of memorialisation, as well as the
wisdom of costly memorials, there remained a strong commitment to memorialising the
lives of individual resistance leaders and heroes of the liberation struggle as part of a new
public history.
This commitment made itself felt as the terrain of national monuments and heritage
resources management also underwent a process of transformation. Resistance biography
found its way into changing heritage resources policy as the lives of individual men were
narrated into a public history of resistance and reconciliation as significant national
leaders and heroes. In 1992, a small house in Angel Street, Kimberley, once the home of
Sol Plaatje, was declared a national monument. This step was seen as deserving of “a
special place in the history of conservation practice in South Africa”, as attention began to
be focused on places of significance for the black community. 95 Similarly, after a long
search by the National Monuments Council (NMC) involving detailed documentary,
photographic and archaeological research, the burial site of Enoch Sontonga, composer of
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, was finally identified on a plot in the Braamfontein Cemetery. On
Heritage Day, 1996, in a special ceremony convened by the Department of Arts, Culture,
Science and Technology (DACST), Sontonga’s grave was declared a national monument,
during which Nelson Mandela unveiled a “fitting memorial”. 96
In another example of resistance biography as heritage, the house in Ginsburg, near King
William’s Town, to which Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko had been banned, was
94 Cape Times 4 April 1996, 8 April 1996; Mail and Guardian, 12‐18 April 1996.
95 Colin Fortune and Leigh Deyzel, ‘Sol Plaatje House: A Monument to a Great South African’, in
International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) National Committee, Monuments and Sites:
South Africa, Colombo, Sri Lanka: ICOMOS, 1996, p 127.
96 Genevieve Walker, ‘A Memorial to Enoch Mankanyi Sontonga’, in International Council on
Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) National Committee, Monuments and Sites: South Africa, p 135; ‘Nkosi
Sikelel’ iAfrika: the Story’ (Poster), Issued by DACST and NMC, 1996. The landscaped park in which
Sontonga had been buried was renamed Enoch Sontonga Memorial Park and the road running past
the park has been renamed Enoch Sontonga Avenue. See Briefing: Recent Developments at DACST,
Volume 1, pp 12‐13.
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