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The Legacy Mandela Legacy Sites
UNESCO Announces Two New World Heritage Sites for South Africa
By Shumirai Chimombe
In a major step forward in the protection of African world heritage, UNESCO has announced the inscription of five new sites on its World Heritage List. The newly listed properties, announced in July at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee held in New Delhi, include two in South Africa, and one site each in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Kenya.
The sites that marked South Africa’s historic liberation struggle events have been collectively termed as the ‘Human rights, liberation and reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy sites.’
According to UNESCO, this recognition is of major importance not only for the history of South Africa but also for the world as it illustrates Mandela’s universal action for freedom, human rights and peace. The World Heritage Committee also inscribed three Middle Stone Age sites in the Western Cape and in KwaZulu-Natal as “recognition of South Africa’s significant contribution to the understanding of the origins of modern human behaviour.” The locations are inscribed as The Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour: The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa.
The addition of these two serial properties brings the total number of South Africa’s World Heritage sites to 12, including Robben Island, the Cradle of Humankind, the Cape Floral Region (which includes Table Mountain), uKhahlambaDrakensberg Park, and and the Mapungubwe cultural landscape.
Human Rights, Liberation and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites
Consisting of 14 component parts located around the country, each of these sites is related to a significant turning point of South Africa’s political history.
“These places reflect key events linked to the long struggle against the apartheid state; Mandela’s influence in promoting understanding and forgiveness; and belief systems based on philosophies of nonracialism, Pan-Africanism and ubuntu, a concept that implies humanity is not solely embedded in an individual.” - UNESCO
The Legacy Sites Include:
• The Union Buildings (Pretoria)now the official seat of government and the Presidency, the buildings were originally built to house the entire public service for the Union of South Africa. In 1994 the inauguration of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected President, was held here.
• The Sharpeville Sites (near Johannesburg) - commemorating the massacre of 69 people during a peaceful protest against the unjust Pass laws that restricted black people’s movement. On 21 March 1960 the apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of 4000 people, more than 180 people were wounded with some 50 women and children being among the victims.
• Constitution Hill (Johannesburg) - a former prison and military fort, it incarcerated world-renowned men and women including Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Joe Slovo, Albertina Sisulu, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Fatima Meer. The precinct also confined tens of thousands of ordinary people during its 100-year history: men and women of all races, creeds, ages and political agendas. The site is now home to the country’s Constitutional Court, which endorses the rights of all citizens.
• Liliesleaf (Johannesburg) - a national heritage site which served as the secret headquarters and nerve centre of the ANC, SACP, Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Congress Alliance between 1961 and 1963. On 11 July 1963, the police, acting on a tip-off, raided Liliesleaf and arrested the core leadership of the underground liberation movement. Following the raid, ten people were put on trial to face charges of 193 counts of sabotage against the state.
Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Denis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Lionel ‘Rusty’ Bernstein, Raymond Mhlaba, James Kantor, Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni. Kantor and Bernstein were acquitted but the other eight were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
• Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication (Kliptown, Soweto) - one of the most historically significant and vibrant places in Johannesburg, where the historic signing and adoption of the Freedom Charter took place on 26 June 1955. The square was officially opened by President Mbeki 50 years later, and it consists of a range of cultural attractions and historical monuments and it is a national heritage site.
• 16 June 1976: the Streets of Orlando West (Johannesburg)Now commemorated as Youth Day, this day honours the youth who were ambushed by the apartheid regime police in Soweto as thousands of black students protested against an official order which made Afrikaans compulsory in black townships. Over 500 youths were killed, marking this day as a significant turning point in the history of the liberation struggle.
• University of Fort Hare and ZK Matthews House (Alice, Eastern Cape) - A key institution in higher education for black Africans from 1916 to 1959, the university offered Western-style academic education to students from across subSaharan Africa, creating a black African elite who later became leaders of their countries including Kenneth Kaunda, Seretse Khama, Yusuf Lule, Julius Nyerere, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. Leading anti-Apartheid activists included Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Oliver Tambo of the ANC, Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the IFP, Robert Sobukwe of the Pan Africanist Congress, and Desmond Tutu.
Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews - Z.K. Matthews - was one of the first graduates of the University of Fort Hare (1924) and became the most influential black academic of his time. In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, he worked as an academic at Fort Hare, where he created a culture of questioning that inspired students who became future African leaders.
• The Great Place at Mqhekezweni (Eastern Cape) - this is a site symbolic of traditional leadership where Nelson Mandela lived as a young man under the care of the Regent Jongintaba Dalindyebo after his father passed away. It is the location of the abaThembu traditional authority which survived colonial and apartheid governments as the custodian of cultural rights, customs and the retention of traditional governance. This profoundly influenced Mandela’s notions and style of leadership as a prominent leader in the liberation struggle and as South Africa’s first democratically elected president.
• Waaihoek (Bloemfontein) - the Wesleyan Church in Waaihoek was the birthplace of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) which was formed in 1912 and became the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923. On 8 January 1912, a group of Black delegates met in Waaihoek to object to the draft South Africa Act and Union Constitution which excluded Black participation.
This meeting was the most significant in the history of Black protest politics as it was the first joint meeting of Black representatives from all four self-governing British colonies and marked the birth of the ANC.
• Ohlange - (Inanda, KwazuluNatal) - Ohlange Institute was founded in 1901 by John Dube and Nokuthela Dube. Ohlange, which means ‘where all nations come together’ was the first school in South Africa built and managed by black South Africans, and John Dube was also the first president of what became the ANC. The school, located in the township of Inanda, north-west of Durban, was chosen by Nelson Mandela as the place where he would cast his vote in the first racially inclusive election in South Africa in 1994.
The Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour: The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa
UNESCO indicated that these sites provide the most varied and best-preserved record known of the development of modern human behaviour, reaching back as far as 162,000 years. “Symbolic thought and advanced technologies are exemplified by evidence of ochre processing, engraved patterns, decorative beads, decorated eggshells, advanced projectile weapons and techniques for toolmaking, and microliths.” The three sites are:
• Diepkloof Rock Shelter close to Elands Bay, Western Cape - this site contains one of the most complete and continuous Middle Stone Age archaeological sequences in Southern Africa. This has allowed scientists to reconstruct in detail the lives of our ancestors, the environment in which they thrived, and their adaptation over the course of the millennia to an evolving environment. The site also contains rock art dating back to San hunter-gatherers, Khoe pastoralists and the colonial period.
• Pinnacle Point Site Complex in Mossel Bay, Western Cape - these sites, which are at the centre of the archaeologically rich Cape south coast, form part of the Cradle of Human Culture which traces the origins and development of human culture over the past 160 000 years and, in the process, it also uncovers what it means to be human. The Pinnacle Point sites are of great significance as they changed the way scientists contemplated the origins of ‘modern’ humans (homo sapiens) and they hold a unique record of the climate from about 400 000 to 30 000 years ago.
• Sibudu Cave in KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal - this is considered to be one of South Africa’s most important archaeological sites, significant for understanding the behavioural origins of modern humans’ The area has evidence of some of the earliest examples of modern human technology, with a large collection of welldated and well-preserved middle Stone Age deposits. The cave has a long record of occupation between 77 000 and 35 000 years ago. One of its most renowned discoveries are 65 000-year old bone arrowheads, the earliest yet discovered, as well as sea-shell beads older than 70 000 years.
