The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

to the present. This project would “commemorate all those who fell in the struggle for
liberation” and at the same time, mark the “celebration of the attainment of freedom and
democracy”. It was envisaged that this project would be a symbolic expression of the
themes of “Struggle, Democracy and Nation‐Building”, and would “represent our past,
present and future”. The components of Freedom Park would incorporate, amongst
others, a memorial to victims of the struggle, a museum dedicated to the history of the
freedom struggle, and an indigenous garden of reflection and meditation, possibly named
after Albert Luthuli. 121
Some leaders were singled out for special biographical treatment. Museums would be
created as tributes to Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela. A Gandhi trail, “In the
Footsteps of Gandhi” was to be prepared as a “tribute” to Gandhi’s life and “his bequest
to the spiritual and political culture of South Africa”. It was particularly noted that
Gandhi’s philosophy “resonated in the conduct of South Africa’s ‘negotiated revolution’,
in the healing spirit expressed in our new constitution, and in the healing spirit of the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission”. It was also recommended that a project called
“The Long Walk to Freedom: The Mandela Trail” be introduced. This initiative in tourism
through Mandela’s well‐established biography would connect “many places of
significance” associated with South Africa’s first democratic president, such as his
Orlando West home, the location of his attorney’s practice, the site of his incarceration
during the treason trial in the 1950s, educational institutions like Healdtown and Fort
Hare, and sites such as Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, location of the High Command of
uMkhonto we Sizwe (‘Spear of the Nation’, the ANC’s military wing) in the 1960s and the
Grand Parade, where he first spoke after his release in February 1990. An “overarching,
historical trail” of Mandela’s “life and times” would provide tourists with “a portrait of
the society in which he lived and struggled” and give a “context to his steadfast vision of a
non‐racial society. 122
121 ‘The Portfolio of Legacy Projects’.
122 ‘The Portfolio of Legacy Projects’. In line with this project, a tourist trail of the sites associated with
Mandela’s biography was published in 2000, written by one of the authors of the Legacy Project
Discussion Document, historian and heritage activist, Luli Callinicos (The World that made Mandela: A
Heritage Trail – 70 sites of significance, Johannesburg: STE Publishers, 2000).
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