31 July 2004

Madam Chairperson,
Premier Thabang Makwetla,
MECs here present,
Mayors of the towns of Mpumalanga,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

The launch and inauguration of the National Heritage Council (NHC) in March this year marked an important milestone in government’s quest to facilitate the equitable development, conservation and promotion of our collective history, national symbols and libraries and to ensure the proper resourcing of our national heritage. The NHC was launched at a time when much has been achieved in the area of cultural heritage development specifically, ten years into our young democracy, but also at a time when major challenges still remain in facilitating symbolic reparations and healing through:

• the transformation of museums;
• the identification and management of heritage resources;
• balancing the heritage landscape through implementation of the legacy projects;
• the foregrounding of living heritage; and,
• the transformation and standardisation of geographical names in South Africa.

Before 1994 museums tended to reflect the history and achievements of only one section of the people of this country. We expect them to reposition themselves so that they serve all the people of South Africa. That imperative poses a series of challenges to all of us charged with the preservation of our heritage. These challenges include accessibility with regard to the museum infrastructure; the development of new clientele; the development of human resources; the implementation of affirmative action; the grooming and appointing of a new generation of curators and managers drawn from across the colour spectrum, mounting exciting community outreach programmes, introducing acquisition policies that recognize the value and validity of indigenous artifacts, integrating living heritage in the form of oral tradition, oral history and pre-modern African knowledge systems into the museums.

Government is faced with the constant demand to deploy resources for addressing basic human needs. These demands place severe constraints on budget allocations for this sector at a time when demands for new commemorative structures and new institutions are on the increase. Faced with this reality, our Museums must begin exploring innovative methods of generating funds. Heritage can be utilized for economic development. But to do so our institutions need to develop exciting programmes that can attract both the public and private sectors. It is through such programmes that the museums would be able to capture a larger portion of the tourism market, as prime tourist attractions. It is also through such programmes that museums would be able to forge meaningful partnerships with the private sector.

The Department has embarked on a transformation programme with museums in an attempt to address the issues mentioned above. The department is awaiting a final report it commissioned to assess the impact of the transformation programme and to provide recommendations on the disbursement, utilization and monitoring of the transformation budget.

The transformation programme includes conducting workshops to build capacity within institutions for developing project proposals and business plans. This will help to eradicate the dependency syndrome that characterizes the relationship between the DAC and heritage institutions. The view of the Department is that the institutions should be able to develop project proposals that attract private sector investment and thus decrease dependence on government funding. We are looking forward to the report on this programme.

The absence of an audit of the national estate – that is the artworks, the cultural artifacts, the exhibits, etc in our museums and galleries – is a challenge we are taking on. Conducting and audit of the national estate becomes even more urgent when our holdings are threatened by the international scourge of illicit trafficking in cultural property.

In the 2004-2005 financial year, the Department received R7.5 million to begin the process of doing an audit of the heritage objects in museums and other institutions. It is important for the country to know the state of its heritage objects because such knowledge will arm us to better protect them.

I am in the process of appointing a panel of heritage experts charged with the task of developing a strategic framework and terms of reference for conducting the national audit.

Linked to the national audit of heritage objects is a skills audit of the sector. South Africa suffers a dearth of skills in the Heritage Sector. A cursory glance at our institutions, particularly museums, highlights the fact that the leadership is not only aging but also characterized by both racial and gender imbalances. We must begin addressing this issue by setting in place academic programmes to train a new generation of curators, drawn from all population groups and gendered to reflect the demographics of our country. The Department has undertaken a skills audit to give us a comprehensive picture of what we have and don’t have. This will inform the development of our human resource development strategy so as to reverse the present reality.

The inaccessibility of heritage infrastructure underscores the urgent need to refurbish our heritage infrastructure so that our museums become world class exhibition spaces with accessible facilities especially for the physically challenged. During the 2003-2004 financial year an amount of R56 million was disbursed to heritage institutions for this purpose. An incremental five-year strategy has been adopted.. Government intends soliciting the inputs of experts to review the existing infrastructure and make recommendations regarding its upgrading and refurbishment over the next five years.

The absence of Provincial Heritage resource authorities (PHRAs) has left an administrative vacuum in a number of provinces. The then Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology facilitated liaison between SAHRA and provincial Departments to assist them to speed up the process of establishing PHRAs. Functional PHRAs have now been established for Gauteng, Western Cape and Kwazulu Natal. The PHRAs for Limpopo, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga still face capacity problems. Consequently, certain of their functions have been outsourced to SAHRA on an agency basis. Provinces that still need to finalise establishment of their PHRA’s are North West and Free State. Efforts to assist in the development of capacity and the establishment of outstanding PHRAs will be intensified.

Prior to the provincialisation of heritage resource management, and shortly after the inauguration of President Mandela on 27 April 1994, the then Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology and The Presidency were inundated with requests from diverse sources for the establishment of monuments, museums, statues in memory and recognition of great leaders and historic events. Almost all the requests came from communities, leaders and individuals whose heritage had been neglected during the colonial and apartheid eras. As a corollary to these requests, the then Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology identified nine pilot Legacy Projects for consideration and approval by Cabinet. These were submitted to Cabinet in 1998.

Amongst these projects, four have been completed. These are the Women’s Monument, the Anglo-Boer South/African War, Constitution Hill and the Chief Albert Luthuli Project. The Nelson Mandela, Samora Machel, and Ncome/Blood River Projects are half-complete and the Khoisan Project is still in its conceptual phase. The first phase of Freedom Park – the Garden of Remembrance – has been delivered and was launched on 8 March 2004. Other phases will be completed between 2005 and 2007.

Government departments, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations and individuals have undertaken pockets of uncoordinated initiatives to preserve and popularize living heritage. Whilst these are recognized and commended, a government-led, synergetic approach as well as community driven strategies are required to develop a comprehensive programme that captures the imagination of all South African citizens. The programme should transcend the collection of elements of living heritage and culminate in the development of policy and legislative instruments needed for its protection (in the face of its commodification). The incubators of living heritage that, despite all odds have been able to retain invaluable knowledge must be identified and given appropriate recognition.

The work of the living heritage unit in the department is concerned with formulating a strategy for preservation and promotion of Living Heritage (internationally referred to as intangible cultural heritage in terms of the UNESCO Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage) for example, oral tradition, oral history, rituals, indigenous performance, music, indigenous knowledge systems and the holistic approach to life.

Amongst these elements of Living Heritage, the Department has prioritized indigenous music. A panel has been appointed to develop a strategy for the collection, development, preservation, promotion and dissemination of indigenous music. Consultative processes through Provincial seminars were held in April – October 2000, culminating in a national conference in October 2000 with the main purpose of discussing and adopting the strategy. Such a strategy was agreed in November 2000.

The Department is working with three Historically Disadvantaged Universities, viz, Zululand, Venda and Fort Hare, with NGOs and CBOs to collect indigenous music, compile oral histories and other forms of living heritage.

In 2003, South Africa participated in the drafting of the UNESCO Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage. As a member state, South Africa bears the responsibility of developing a policy and legislation in this regard.

We intend to use Heritage Month, September 2004, to launch programmes that are designed to achieve the development of policy, legislation and an inventory. Heritage Month and Heritage Day this year will be decentralized. Provinces and Municipalities will play a prominent role in the rollout strategy so that the Heritage Month and Heritage Day have an impact at a community level and stimulates capacity to mobilize the South African public around the concept of living Heritage. We hope to use the theme as a springboard for achieving our vision of collecting, preserving, protecting and promoting our Living Heritage. Using this theme, over the next five years, the DAC hopes to establish policy and legislation, as well as a dynamic national inventory and a database of both Living Heritage and Living Human Treasures.

The need to preserve the words, thoughts and the memories of our living human treasures is thrown into sharp relief this weekend. Tomorrow we will be laying to rest the mortal remains of one of the most outstanding fighters for freedom, Wilton Mkwayi. He will go to the grave with a host of valuable memories because no one bothered to record them, or his impressions of life before and After 1994. That is loss to South Africa. We are losing the our living human treasures almost everyday.

Linked to the Living Heritage is the transformation and standardization of geographical names in South Africa. Each country has the sovereign prerogative to standardize its geographical names, i.e. to decide what the name for each feature in that country should be, and how that name should be written. This is consistent with UN resolution 4 of the First UN Conference on the Standardisation of Geographical Names.

Consistent use of accurate geographical names is an essential element of effective communication worldwide and supports socio-economic development, conservation and national infrastructure. Geographical names give places an identity and reflect national and regional culture, heritage and landscape.

The SAGNC facilitated the establishment of nine provincial committees. The Department, through the South African Geographical Names Unit has taken it upon itself to drive capacity building and an awareness campaign in all nine provinces in order to give provinces the ability to enforce policies of the SAGNC at provincial level. Capacity building will focus on the use of the recently established geographical names database system and at the same time undertake an audit of geographical names in the country. The process will take three months to complete.

The Department and the SAGNC has published a second, revised edition of its Handbook on Geographical Names. It maintains a website on which lists of approved names are published, together with information about the Council itself.

The cooperation of the National Language Services and Pan South African Language Board was obtained for the production of orthographies for geographical names in all the official languages and other recognised languages. That work has now commenced.

South Africa will be hosting the 29th session of the World Heritage Committee in Durban during July 2005. That meeting poses one of the biggest organizational challenges this Department will have to handle. But beyond our department’s organizational capacity, South Africa will be expected to place world heritage strategic issues pertinent to Africa at the centre of the World Heritage Committee. These issues include:

• Implementation of the global strategy
• A 10-15 - Year Plan to increase the inscription of African sites on the World Heritage List
• A 10-15 - Year Plan to relocate African sites from the endangered list to the normal World Heritage List
• Maximizing the potential of heritage in sustainable development and poverty alleviation.
• Maximizing the role of heritage in New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Regional Integration, Trans-frontier Protection and Joint Presentation of Nomination Dossiers
• Maximizing the role of heritage in promoting national identities, peace and prosperity.

What gives the NHC the edge in terms of consolidating the gains made and succeeding where the Department has failed? The NHC’s strategic advantage lies in the strongly inclusive composition and spread of its Council. Its edge lies in the fact that Council is composed of the heads of the same institutions that are earmarked for transformation, 9 members from the provinces and five members nominated by the Ministry. This configuration results in ownership of the coordination of policy formulation and the implementation of the transformation agenda being taken out of the Department. It becomes the responsibility of institutions themselves through their chairpersons, councils and the NHC, thereby strengthening the democratic process by broadening public participation in policy formulation and resource allocation and sidestepping the limitations of framework autonomy.

I am therefore confident that the NHC is appropriately positioned to assist my Ministry in building on the gains made and confronting the challenges still facing the sector. I look forward to working with you in this process.

Heritage – as embodied in our national monuments, our heritage sites and institutions, our libraries and our legacy projects – constitutes the collective national memory of the people of South Africa. But like memory, it is subject to elision, as when the less pleasant episodes of our past are glossed over; it can be subject to repression, as when the human psyche prefers to repress the uglier side of human experience; it is also subject to a simple human failing – forgetfulness. With the calibre of person we have on our National Heritage Council, I have every confidence that our past will not be elided, repressed or forgotten. Because we want a healthy nation, which is neither forgetful of its past nor fearful of the future, I know this National Heritage Council will not let us down.

Thank you.

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