Dini Sobukwe, son of Robert Sobukwe.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)February 24, 2011 – The Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe exhibition launch this evening, hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, marks the opening of the 10th in a series of exhibitions created by the organisation as a means of engaging members of the public in open dialogue.
Created in collaboration with the Robert Sobukwe Trust among others, the exhibition features multimedia content about Robert Sobukwe’s life, his legacy and some of his personal artefacts: an iron from his incarceration at Robben Island, study material he pored over while at the University of Fort Hare and a schoolbook with the inscription “Remember Africa”.
The exhibition and the subsequent dialogue sessions to be held at the Foundation throughout the day tomorrow serve to present previously disowned narrations as a very real part of our history in post-apartheid South Africa.
Sobukwe’s oft-uttered phrase “Remember Africa” offers a starting point for dialogue initiated by the Centre of Memory at the Foundation. The dialogue sessions, which start at 10h00 on February 25, will focus on three core themes – the secret, the taboo and the disavowal.
Keynote speakers Dini Sobukwe, son of Robert Sobukwe, and Jacob Dlamini, established author and historian, opened the dialogue platform.
Introduced by Sello Hatang of the Foundation, “Bra Dini” delivered a heartfelt and personal account of his father’s life and death, presenting a crucial introduction to the theme of “the disavowal”. Some have argued that Sobukwe’s legacy and role in history have been neglected or “disavowed” in recent times.
Jacob Dlamini.
(Image: Nelson Mandela Foundation)Dlamini exposed harsh truths about his namesake, an apartheid-era administrator, who died at the hands of angry Sharpeville residents on September 3, 1984. He centered his speech on the themes of “the secret” and “the taboo”. He described “the secret” as things we choose not to say. For example, Dlamini’s killers were never named.
The theme of “taboo”, explained Dlamini, is about relooking things we have been led to believe, including issues around heroism and the glorification of violence.
“The tree of liberation – does it have to be nurtured by human blood?” he asked.
While the Robert Sobukwe exhibition celebrates a history some have discredited, the dialogue forums aim to place memory in real-time context as discussion around the three key themes evolves.
Attendees at the Centre of Memory dialogue sessions on 25 February will be encouraged to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable and speak the unspeakable.