Programme Director

To the Honourable Chairperson of the Council of the Natal Museum, Prof. PND Nzimande, The Honourable Executive Mayor, Cllr Hlatshwayo, Members of the Natal Museum Council, the Director and staff of the Museum and all invited guests I want to especially greet you and thank you for this opportunity to give this address today.

I want to thank the Museum Council and staff for always inviting me to share in the celebration of achievements of this Museum. I was last here in 2004 when the Museum was celebrating 100 years in “true style”, as they were saying.

This event today takes place just two days after the celebration of Women’s Day which, once again, highlighted the role that women played in the liberation of all the people of this country which sometimes tends to be overlooked. This is, in fact, a year of celebrating the milestones in the history of our country. I am therefore pleased to see the efforts that our heritage institutions, like the Natal Museum, are making to ensure that this rich heritage is properly documented especially for future generations. With South Africa hosting the World Cup in 2010, it is important that we showcase our heritage as part of the planning for this important event. But for this to happen successfully, our people must identify with these institutions and ensure that they are truly reflective of the diverse cultures and heritage of the communities that they serve. It is good to see that a lot of work has already been started to achieve that goal here. The work that is done here will have no relevance to our communities unless they are informed and participate fully in it. It is for this reason that institutions like Museums and Libraries need to develop strong links with their communities and should be responsive to the needs of those communities. I am proud of some of the initiatives that this institution has undertaken towards this end. The opening of the Learners Resource Centre & Swahili Towns & Trade exhibition today is a plausible effort to bring the Natal Museum closer to the people.

I often quote Sir Seretse Khama, the first President of a liberated Botswana, who said: “A nation without a past is a lost nation; A people without a past is a people without a soul”. Because what he said inspires me. Museums are places where aspects of the world in which we live, which constitute this “past” Sir Seretse Khama referred to, are researched, interpreted, preserved, conserved and stored for posterity and made available for the public to interact with.

Different museums concern themselves with different aspects of our world. This museum concerns itself with the natural and cultural world around us, which is evident from the displays on view. People who may lack an understanding of what the value is, of all this, may regard interest in such pursuits as trivial, since it seemingly falls short of providing for their basic needs like shelter, jobs, food and water.

But if you ask the hundreds of people and the thousands of school children who walk through the doors of museums and libraries each year, who visit these institutions and are exposed to and educated in these various aspects of our world, the will certainly tell you that they have been inspired and their knowledge has been enriched, to learn and experience about the world around them. Where else, other than a museum, can one see and learn so much about our world, within a short time, in such limited space?

People visit museums and libraries to absorb, to be part of, and find inspiration in the soul of the nation. This alone is sufficient reason for the continued, and increased, support for South Africa’s museums and libraries.

The mission of the Natal Museum is to focus on the natural and cultural world around us. Thus, we should not only focus on the local. It is critical that we find inspiration beyond our horizon. Not only should we look overseas to the West and East for inspiration and interaction, which too often happens to be the case, but we should also focus on our own continent, Africa.

South Africans and South Africa did not develop in isolation. It is from Africa that we all emerged, whether in the remote past or more recently. If we fail to reach out to Africa we limit our understanding of our world. We would actually be cutting ourselves off from our roots, lose our connection to our history and hence lose our souls, or at least, place severe restrictions on our ability to understand ourselves, our identity, who we are and where we come from.

This sentiment is fundamental even to recent development initiatives such as NEPAD, which is about socio-economic improvement, and cultural projects such as the African Renaissance. President Thabo Mbeki is clear on this: the African Renaissance “links the past to the future and speaks to the interconnection between an empowering process of restoration and the consequences or the response to the acquisition of that newly restored power to create something new”.

Hence our President, together with President Toure of Mali, are championing the preservation and conservation of the ancient manuscripts discovered in Mali, which deal with various disciplines such as astronomy, mathematics, science, history, literature, commerce, music, governance and Islamic Law.

The Learners Resource Centre being opened today has a common theme: “reaching out”. The Learners Resource Centre marks a major shift from the traditional Museum library being a library for research purposes only. This resource centre will supplement the Museum’s educational programs and allow learners to understand other aspects of heritage that are not addressed by the exhibitions.

The use of multi-media technology for the resource will ensure that the Museum communicate to the young people through a medium that they fully understand.

The Department of Arts and Culture is proud to be associated with such projects as part of the on-going process to transform the heritage sector. The fact that the centre will be used to highlight the commemoration of specific events in our heritage is also a significant achievement for the Museum.

I have also been educated today. When viewing the exhibition I learnt that the Swahili culture evolved out of the expansion and intensification of ancient trade links along the East African coast to encompass people in Arabia, India, Indonesia and China. Out of centuries of intense and cosmopolitan contact with people from these diverse regions, people on the African coast from Somalia to northern Mozambique constructed a unique, complex culture that merged elements of African, Arabic and Indian life under the banner of Islam, which was introduced to East Africa around 1000 years ago. Undeniably though, the Swahili are African people. This display portrays some aspects of Swahili life, depicts the trade routes that criss-crossed the Indian Ocean and, through the beautifully carved doors from Bagamoyo in Tanzania, takes the visitor into the homes of the people.

I also learnt that the Zimbabwean culture, which today is about 1000 years old, also developed out of long-distance interaction. It differs from the Swahili example in that people in southern Africa constructed a new indigenous belief system rather than adopting and transforming one from outside. The Zimbabwean culture originated in the Limpopo valley at the famous sites of K2 and Mapungubwe. Its centre subsequently shifted to Zimbabwe.

This display proudly focuses on the South African components of the Zimbabwe culture. The story of origins in the Limpopo valley is told in some detail, as is the emergence of the Venda nation from interaction between Shona and Sotho people. The Zimbabwe culture lives on today among the Venda of Limpopo Province. A model of the finely decorated palace wall at Nalatale (a royal site in southwest Zimbabwe) and continuously rolling imagery from Great Zimbabwe forms an impressive backdrop to this story and provides alternative texture of the rest of the display.

We must commend the staff of the Natal Museum for the initiative they have taken in obtaining funding from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund. While our Department will continue to strive to access funds from Treasury for the development of such exhibitions, the formation of partnerships to attract funding will allow for greater involvement of both the public and private sector and thereby speed up the process of transforming our heritage landscape. I am glad to see that the Natal Museum has started to develop such initiatives.

Our department will continue to support the Museum to address the imbalance in terms of heritage development and transformation in this country. This is the main challenge that we face and established institutions like the Natal Museum should assist the Department in addressing it. Museums should not be seen in isolation to the development needs of our young democracy. Museums belong to the people and their projects should be directed at ensuring that the people of this country develop a sense of pride and ownership of these institutions.

The projects that the Museums develop must always be aligned to the national imperatives as identified by our government and contribute to the socio-economic development of our country. These projects should also contribute to the healing and building of our nation and unite all of us in our diversity.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the staff that worked so hard to conceptualize and develop these projects that are being opened today and once more, thank the Chairperson of the Council and all the Council members, for the support they have been giving the staff in executing their mandate.

And now, I have the honour and privilege to declare the Learners Resource Centre and the Swahili Towns and Trade Exhibition officially opened.

I thank you.