The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

“celebrat[ing] heroic national deeds” in spite of being a “state‐sanctioned” institution
created to turn the site of Pieterson’s death into a destination. 146
To ensure that it would not merely be a destination with an informative display, the
Museum had started a research project staffed by volunteers, who would “go out into the
immediate community with tape recorders”. People who were present at the student
marches on June 16 1976 were encouraged “to record their experiences”. The Museum had
also started to develop its archives, which had begun to be used by school learners and
researchers. While tourists formed 90 percent of visitors by the end of 2002, Hlongwane
was confident that the measures adopted together with a “public awareness programme”
would ensure higher numbers of South African visitors, especially Sowetans. 147 In spite of
it having been created mainly as a tourist site by the City of Johannesburg through the
operation of consultants, the Museum was adamant that it would not be a passive display
environment. Moreover, its main researcher, historian Sifiso Ndlovu, stressed that while
consultant architects (Mashabane and Rose) and a historian (himself) had been engaged to
create the museum building and the display, it was significant that both he and Phil
Mashabane were Sowetan by birth, and that in many ways what had emerged at the
Hector Pieterson Museum had been an instance of “local heritage management”. 148
Burial and contested biographics
Another arena in which public political biography was shaped through memorialisation
and remembrance was the theatre of the mass public funeral. One element of the rituals of
funerals as spaces of mourning and forums for coming to terms with death is the funeral
tribute. In religious and other settings, this ritual generally offers an appointed person(s)
or volunteer(s) the opportunity to reflect on the life and achievements of the deceased
146 Alan Lipman, ‘This is not the way to honour heroes of ‘76’, Sunday Independent, 18 January 2004.
147 Lucille Davie, ‘Hector: the famous child whose face is unknown’; Lucille Davie, ‘Hector Pieterson
Museum to charge entrance fee’.
148 Sifiso Ndlovu, Personal Communication, 8 November 2003. This seemed in sharp contrast to the
plans for Kliptown’s Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication, the renamed site of the adoption of the
Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in 1955. There the heritage theming of the site was
planned to occur through a different model of institution building, one that gave more weight to the
professional credentials of the consultant.
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