Charles Apple

I had been trying for three weeks to get to the Apartheid Museum on the south side of downtown Johannesburg. My first Sunday in town, for example, I drove to the wrong spot — thanks for nuthin’, Google Maps — and then, my second weekend, I didn’t feel much like taking in a museum.

That changed on my third Sunday in Johannesburg, Oct.  18. I toured the museum, along with my colleagues Peter Ong, a news design consultant from Sydney, Australia and Adonis Durado, a fabulous magazine designer currently working in Bangkok.

Peter drove Adonis and me to the museum, located on the southwest side of town, not far from the township of Soweto. These seven concrete pillars containing key principles of good government create a stately but spartan skyline for the place:

The place looks like a prison. And rightfully so. The Apartheid Museum was designed to create an imposing and threatening environment where one can relive not just the facts of Apartheid but also the emotions and feel the inhumanity of it all.

And it certainly does all that. All that and more.

The building feels like a prison, with huge slabs on concrete and iron grating and enormous vertical and horizontal windows:

Even in the bright sunlight of a Sunday afternoon, the place just oozed oppression.

And while you certainly have enough light to see where you’re going and to see the exhibits, you find yourself enveloped in darkness. Much like the anti-Apartheid protesters who found themselves in prison for most of their lives.

Before you even enter the building, though, you come across this great quote by Nelson Mandela is plastered to the front of a wall facing a reflecting pool:

The quote itself is wonderful. But we found ourselves intrigued by the shadows cast by the metal letterforms:

At first glance, it appeared the shadows were artificially created — painted onto the wall, perhaps.

But when we departed the museum, a few hours later, we found the sun had shifted, eliminating the shadows:

Mystery solved.

Our first clue for what we were in for came as we bought our tickets. The folks at the booth sized us up visually and issued tickets based solely on our appearances:

Being one of the whitest folks you’ll ever meet, I naturally was given a whites only pass. Peter and Adonis — who are both Asian — were given non-whites passes:

It seemed like a cute gimmick until you actually try to enter the front door. There were separate entrances for each and a guard who actually enforced the signs:

The entrance was very, very clever. I passed through the whites-only door and entered a very easy, straightforward walkway with a few introductory exhibits showing enlargements of ID cards issued by the Apartheid government.

On the other side of the iron fence, my non-white friends found themselves in a maze of nooks and crannies. Everywhere they looked, they could see ID cards and pass books owned by non-whites during the Apartheid era.

And they could see me through the fence. Separate and, most definitely, not equal.

I even felt a little jealous. The exhibits on their side seemed more interesting than the ones on my side.

At the end of the passageway, Adonis and Peter couldn’t enter the rest of the museum without coming face to face with a life-sized portrait of an Apartheid-era race classification board. Non-whites were forced to submit to these all-white governmental judicial units that decided to what race you belonged and, therefore, what rights you would and wouldn’t have.

What an incredible way to make the point about Apartheid. Simply amazing. And we were just getting started.

Once we exited this introductory area — through separate-but-unequal exits, naturally…

…we entered a long courtyard that took us up a gently sloping ramp that contained mirrored panels of typical South African citizens of all colors and backgrounds. From the back, you’d see their backs. But from the front, you’d see their fronts.

The point, of course, is that modern South Africa consists not of whites or blacks, but of a multi-hued pool of humans with varied backgrounds. Most of the people shown in the exhibit are descendants of folks who moved to Johannesburg during the gold, silver and diamond rushes.

Mixed in among the photos were blank mirrors so you’d appear to be part of the exhibit yourself.

The oppressive-looking, prison-like architecture seemed to disintegrate before our eyes. The point here is either the oppressive walls of Apartheid are being dismantled or that South Africa is still rebuilding itself as a country.

Or perhaps the point is both. Like all great art, the intentions of the artists — or, in this case, the architects — can be interpreted depending on your own mood or point of view.

At the top of the ramp, we enjoyed this nice view of downtown Johannesburg… with a roller coaster in the foreground. The museum, you see, shares property with an amusement park and a casino. Sigh…

The museum itself is a world-class building. We entered and turned right to find a wonderful exhibit of artifacts from the life of Nelson Mandela. If you turn left from the front door, however, you enter the walkway you see here to enter the main part of the museum:

This dual entry confused us. In fact, I found the Mandela part of the facility so wonderful that, once I finished that section, I thought we were done for the day.

In the lobby was this huge blown-up photo of poor workers in pre-Apartheid South Africa. I thought it’d make an interesting shot if I got Adonis standing in front of it as if he were photographing the crowd itself:

And that’s when I drew the attention of a museum curator, who told me photography was not allowed in the Apartheid Museum and that I’d have to put away my camera.

Here’s where I ought to be showing you the red car the Mercedes factory gave Nelson Mandela when he got out of prison. But my willingness to cooperate with the museum’s rules means I don’t have pictures of the dozens upon dozens of very, very cool artifacts there.

But that willingness lasted only to a certain point. I just had to take a picture of this:

That is the No. 6 rugby jersey Nelson Mandela wore on June 24, 1995, in certainly one of the highlights of his presidency. Wearing the Springbok jersey — previously regarded as a symbol of South African whites — helped unify the country.

This moment will be the subject of a movie opening in December — Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Matt Damon as the rugby player and Morgan Friedman as Mandela.

The rest of the museum tells the story of the initial segregation of South Africa over many decades, the real start of Apartheid in the late 1940s and the resistance and eventual fall of the Apartheid government.

At times, the story is told with vintage news footage on huge projection screens. At other times, the narrative is told with personal interviews on TV monitors, with multiple conversations going on simultaneously.

And, of course, the place is full of period artifacts. Like this Casspir armored personnel carrier that was used to ferry troops into rebellious townships in the 1980s:

The museum also contains reproductions of the kinds of cells found at Robben Island, where political prisoners such as Mandela himself were kept for decades.

Perhaps one of the most chilling exhibits was the hall of political executions. Under Apartheid, 131 people were executed for what was supposedly terrorism.

This room contains 131 nooses — one for each hanging — plus information about people who were tortured to death, allegedly committed suicide while in prison and journalists who were persecuted for reporting these facts.

Terrifying stuff.

Some of you know I spent the early part of my journalism career as an editorial cartoonist. So I was delighted to find an entire exhibit of work by cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro — “Zapiro” — of the Mail & Guardian and the Sunday Times:

Lining the walls were dozens upon dozens of Zapiro cartoons about Nelson Mandela…

…and quite a few originals as well:

Some of the pieces were very harsh. It was great to see the Mandela Foundation carefully preserved every cartoon, regardless of how flattering it was or was not to Mandela himself:

There was a TV screen that showed Zapiro’s animation of what he calls the “Madiba jive”…

…and another in which he demonstrated how he goes about constructing a cartoon.

All too quickly, we were out of museum. The story of the rise and fall of Apartheid told, the architecture focused again on the seven pillars upon which the new national Constitution are based. Seemingly random windows let in rays of light to illuminate the principles and pointing the way to the future. And the exit.

I loved the way sunlight fell across this sign serving as an epilogue to our museum visit:

Intentional? Who knows? Who cares?

The Apartheid Museum is most definitely a must-see for anyone visiting Johannesburg. And it’s only an exit or two from the giant Soccer City World Cup venue.

The admission price for an adult is R30, which is about $4.04. You can’t beat that.

The only thing the museum was lacking — at least it was on the day we were there — was a restaurant. We emerged enlightened but very, very hungry.

Luckily, help was nearby. We drove across the street to the Gold Reef Casino, where we knew we could find restaurants.

You’ll recall we had driven up to Sun City the previous day and examined the casino there. We weren’t crazy about going into another casino — none of the three of us are gamblers — but we have to admit, these South African casinos are very nicely equipped and extremely well-decorated.

We were captivated from the very start by these brass springbok, seemingly floating on jets of water.

All three of us shot oodles of pictures. We must have looked like a bunch of tourists or something.

Just like at Sun City, I noticed a sign proclaiming that “winners know when to stop.” Left unsaid: Losers, however, don’t know when to stop. And don’t expect us to tip you off.

We saw stone elephants in Sun City. Here, the casino is guarded by gold-colored elephants wearing jeweled coats and hats.

We saw row after row of middle-class Africans, dropping tons of coins into slot machines.

There were so many machines humming their electronic tunes that the music all combined to create this high-pitched droning sound that just wouldn’t stop.

The place wasn’t totally without merit. Toward the back, we found a fascinating exhibit of vintage slot machines. This one, I think, was from 1927:

This is a model from 1934:

There were also old pinball machines on display, like this model from 1937:

And this one, from a few years later:

Unlike Sun City — where the architecture looked expensive and modern, yet carved out of rock — this place was just gaudy:

But the food was good, so I’m not complaining. The large fish n’ chips at the bottom was mine. Peter and Adonis shared the huge seafood platter you see at the top.

Seafood and beer. Yum.

Stuffed with lunch, we walked around a while, watched folks play lose money at roulette, blackjack and poker and then decided to re-emerge into the sunlight.

We had seen a little rain on Saturday, but Sunday was gorgeous and not terribly hot.

I snapped this photo as Peter paid the parking attendant. I’ve only seen things like this spike barricade in the movies. Man, these guys are serious about their parking lots.

It seemed like a waste of a perfectly nice day to simply go back to our respective hotels. So Peter suggested we detour through the city center of Johannesburg.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, Johannesburg is both a delightful city and a burnedd-out wasteland, depending on a) What part of the city you see, b) What time you visit, and c) What kind of mood you’re in.

Sundays are a particularly interesting time to go downtown. Nearly all the businesses are shut down, so you see a lot of boarded-up stores and barricaded buildings.

The beauty school on the first floor of this small skyscraper looked like it had prepared for World War III:

This gentleman looked too uncomfortable to be resting. Yet, that’s what he appeared to be doing:

One begins to wonder if the word “mall” is being used too frequently here:

It might not be a real mall. But it’s a hawkers’ paradise, we hear.

And then, dropped in among the concrete travesties are these colorful little places with wrought-iron railings that delight the eye but make you wonder just how nice the place was at one time:

We turned north toward the Hillbrow section of town and in the general direction of my hotel. While very few of the shops were open, we found a number of street vendors selling their goods on the sidewalks.

And here, we find ourselves completely surrounded by taxi vans, which seem bound by neither the rules of the road nor common freakin’ sense, much of the time.

I enjoyed the museum visit immensely; the drive through downtown Jo’burg on a lazy Sunday afternoon, not so much. I guess I’ve simply listened to too many warnings about the lack of safety here for tourists.

That was the last of my mini-tours for a while. The next day, we dove into our big push for the relaunch of the weekend paper the following Sunday. We all worked pretty long hours and didn’t get out much after that. Until our flea market trip the next Sunday.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 2:57 am and is filed under Travelogue, Trip to South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.