CHAPTER 4. MULTIPLE EXPLANATIONS OF TRANSFORMATION
4.4 Transformation – a struggle for power
At the same time that Stuckenberg visited Germany, the Cultural Institutions Act 66 of 1989 (House of Assembly), was promulgated to regulate the affairs of the seven ‘own affairs’
museums that had been transferred to the Department of Education and Culture (House of Assembly) (Pauw 1994: Annexure, Oberholzer 1993: 34, Dominy 2004: 136, Webb 1994:
20). The act gave the museum´s Board of Trustees autonomy in economic matters. This autonomy led to the Natal Museum appointing Mabongi Mtshali as an educational officer, making her the first African ever to be employed as such by a museum in South Africa. What remained for the Natal Museum was to repeal various regulations and amendments in order to give legal force to her appointment (NMAR 1987/1988). Mtshali was instrumental in establishing a museum club for African Township children. She brought the museum to the township schools, tried to encourage the children to stay in school, and implemented a means to enhance their learning. My informant Nigel (2006-04-11) describes the club as ‘a way to overcome the horrible apartheid legacy’. His view was shared by my informant Ada (2006- 03-21). The Cultural Institution Act 66 of 1989 (House of Assembly) was for the Natal Museum a way to proceed with Transformation and played an important role in how the museum altered its activities to accommodate all groups in society, especially Africans.
In 1990 the ANC started to address the political reconstruction of culture and to create policies (Odendaal 1994: 3). The Natal Museum had already started to transform the museum in response to the needs of society and in rejection of the apartheid government, but the changes that the ANC brought were perceived as difficult for the institution to implement.
There is a discrepancy; the museum undertook changes because they wanted to, not because they were politically obliged to. This is visible in a letter by director Stuckenberg (1992), where he writes: ‘It is gratifying to know that such a high level of motivation and concern for the progress of the museum exists within our staff even in such stressful and uncertain times.’
When the negotiation for Transformation started, the museum sector was in crisis because of inadequate accommodation and staff and lack of funding. The latter had serious implications for museums and made the museums look even less community friendly. The ‘own affairs’
and ‘general affairs’ concepts caused problems by revealing the fragmentation of the museum sector. Cristopher Till said to The Sunday Times that the museums had fallen at least ten years behind (Jansen 1991-01-20). The SAMA held a discussion with the Minister of National Education, Louise Pienaar, and set up a working group with SAMA to investigate the problems and make recommendations37 (Jansen 1991-01-20). Mike Cluver38 commented to The Natal Witness (1991-03-25): ‘In a country where museums … fall into decay or despair it says a lot about the values and the situation in which that country finds itself’. Cluver continued:
As we enter a period where new and maybe different kinds of decision makers are looking at us, or will be looking at us, we have to be seen to be performing a very wide range of tasks and not tasks which are directed specifically towards a single aspect of the population … performing a national task and not a sectarian task (The Natal Witness 1991-03-25).
Msunduzi Museum (VM) was considering how it could matter more to the country and wanted to focus on the differences and similarities of all local ‘cultural groups’ in themes such as music, storytelling and games (Pols undated). What seemed to be a multicultural suggestion, however, overemphasised White heritage, suggesting a lack of interest in other heritages. At the same time the ANC developed cultural programmes and established a commission on museums, monuments and heraldry in 1991 within the ANC´s Department of Arts and Culture. Odendaal (1994: 3) and Wilmot (1995: 3) hold that the aim was to
37 As the museums were hit by subsidy cuts in 1991, the committee of Declared Institutions met to discuss strategies for survival.
38 Director of the South African Museum in Cape Town.
encourage the government to develop democratic policies for museums. In December 1991 the ANC appointed commissions to prepare a policy for museums, monuments, archives and national symbols.
There are two versions of who initiated Transformation. Either it was the ANC meeting in Bloemfontein in 1992 or the Department of National Education meeting two months later in the Pilot Committee for the Investigation of a National Museum Development Policy (Odendaal 1994: 3). From the latter arose the Museums for South Africa: Inter-sectorial investigation for national policy (MUSA). Wilmot (1995: 5) and Pauw (1994:30) point out that in January 1991 the SAMA delegation met with the minister of the Department of National Education to request the formulation of a national policy for museums. The reason for this request was the problems and fragmentation of museums under ‘own affairs’ and
‘general affairs’. My informant Nigel39 (2006-04-11) holds that MUSA was intended to be an independent report, but it was perceived as a product of apartheid. The MUSA report had been finished a month before and was released after the democratic elections in 1994 (Pauw 1994:
30, Odendaal 1994:3, Wilmot 1995: 5, Odendaal 1994: 6). When MUSA was published there was no interest in it, since it did not correspond with the new political objectives. In retrospect it is questionable whether there is any importance in who initiated Transformation, though such discussions do highlight how power was negotiated in museological writing.
MUSA was represented by different stakeholders.40 Two attendants represented the Natal Museum, suggesting that the museum was active in establishing the report. Therefore the reactions to the report must be seen in that light. Pauw41 (1994a: 4-5) holds that the representatives came from various backgrounds working for a positive post-apartheid South African museum structure. Odendaal (1994: 5) writes that MUSA was made up of old apartheid bureaucrats. Odendaal (1994b: 7-8) and Odendaal et al (1994: 12) suggest that the MUSA committee should have originated from a broader spectrum of community groups and since professionalism was not addressed, MUSA could not lead to transformational ethics and practices. Odendaal (1994b: 7-8) and Odendaal, Mazel and Hall (1994: 1) suggest that MUSA
39 Also a member of the MUSA committee.
40 The stakeholders were representatives from South African government and provincial departments,
‘homelands’, museum organisations (e.g. SAMA) and the two committees of Heads of Declared Institutions (Department of National Education and Department of Education and Culture; administration: House of Assembly), Association of Directors of National Collections, the National Monuments Council and museologist representing views of extra-parliamentary groups.
41 A member of MUSA.
could not be trusted to serve the best interests of South Africa and needed to be viewed critically. My informant Nigel (2006-04-11) holds that opposition groups perceived MUSA as being part of apartheid, but that it was supposed to be an independent report by museologists.
The director-general of the Department of National Education put ‘his stamp on it’ and my informant described that as giving it ‘the kiss of death’ and making it read as a public service document.
What Odendaal (1994) and Odendaal et al (1994) discussed was the function of the museums in relation to the larger society. Odendaal et al (1994: 4) describe the museum as distorting culture, dividing society and performing a sectarian task. Museums could become relevant only if they were interpreted as symbols of apartheid and symbols of distorted perceptions.
Pauw (1994a: 4-5) writes that MUSA saw museums in their own right and that they could individually make contributions to society. Odendaal (1994: 5) argues that MUSA was unable to come up with answers about where to proceed and how to address the colonial and apartheid past. Museologists required answers on how to address inequality and needed strategies to deal with such issues. MUSA set a broader framework for addressing the museum structure and its inequalities and could therefore not come up with solutions. Although MUSA addressed collections and intangible heritage, and focused on the Pietermaritzburg declaration, it was not further used. The above writers seemed to expect that its policy would solve the problems that apartheid had placed on museums.
Odendaal (1994b: 7-8) held that because of the low standards in museums MUSA was unsatisfactory and unable to resolve the relationship with the Department of National Education.42 Odendaal (1994: 6-8) held that it failed to provide broad-based national policy and to address the inequalities of apartheid although it set out to do so since it was made up of old decision makers. Although MUSA brought forward a few changes on how to be community friendly, it retained the old system and Dominy43 (2000: 3-4) describes it as the House of Assembly trying to get rid of the resistance.
The Natal Museum welcomed MUSA because it confirmed the role of the museum as a repository of national heritage and an instrument of national reconciliation, tolerance and mutual understanding – something that the Natal Museum had worked towards for some
42 Responsible for the Bantu education policy among other things.
43 A staff -member at the Natal Museum that served on the MUSA committee.
years. The Natal Museum qualified as a national museum according to MUSA´s requirements (NMAR 1993/1994). Odendaal´s (1994b: 12) major criticism was that although making valuable suggestions MUSA did not deal with how museums could contribute to reconstruction, development, nation-building and tolerance, since as he described it, the MUSA group was insular and elitist. I argue that it is easier for Odendaal to critique MUSA and portray museums as instruments of apartheid than it is to come up with real suggestions.
One of the reasons that MUSA did not redress imbalances and give new interpretations was, as Odendaal et al (1994: 12) assert, that the ANC was invited to serve on the committee but chose not to. The structural changes of the museum sector influenced the Natal Museum to evaluate their work. They found that they needed to investigate the relevance of the museum in a larger social context by increasing projects, promoting public awareness and employing a fluent Zulu-speaking guide to address the low level of literacy (woking group 1 1992: 11).
Although MUSA did not address all the aspects it can be seen as a catalyst for the museums to start re-evaluating their activities.
In 1993 the ANC convened the International Culture and Development Conference where important guidelines for the future of museums in South Africa were adopted. In November 1993 the ANC replaced the Commission on Museums, Monuments and Heraldry with the Commission for the Reconstruction and Transformation of the Arts and Culture (CREATE).
The commission presented its report in the form of a policy framework at the above mentioned conference in 1993 (Odendaal 1994: 3). One of my informants, though biased by serving at MUSA, described that the ANC had no plan in place and that their perception was that everything had to be changed (Nigel 2006-04-11). There was a discrepancy between the very proactive Natal Museum, which had already implemented several changes, and its general view of political structural change. The museum wanted to reach out to people, but did not trust the upcoming political dispensation as capable of providing professional governance.
The main objectives of CREATE were to examine existing legislation and policy. One of the main tasks for investigation was the MUSA (Odendaal 1994: 3). Unfortunately very little archival material from the ANC can be found in the museums. It is therefore possible to conclude that the ANC did not communicate its suggestions to the museums and the museums took no interest in the suggestions. I have made efforts to recover minutes and documents
concerning these negotiations from the ANC, but without success. Therefore I have to rely on secondary sources published by Whites.
The ANC policy on museums was published in Semantix 1993 (Wilmot 1993). It is far from comprehensive and contains few practical suggestions on how to develop museums in a democratic society. The policy deals mainly with ideological factors and not with the practical issues of the museum, failing to solve any structural issues and merely highlighting the problems of museums. Yet, the policy sought to overcome the legacy of inequality and the injustice created by colonialism and apartheid in a progressive way. Museums, according to the ANC (Wilmot 1993: 10-11), should foster national unity, reconciliation and democratic values and be of educational benefit to South Africans. The emphasis on education was to address the legacy of Bantu education policy. The ANC built on a larger political framework.
It argued that heritage resources were overly racist and narrow-minded, forming a colonial and apartheid exploitation incapable of upholding democratic values. It found it necessary to replace statutes by racist legislation to foster a holistic strategy for heritage resources (Wilmot 1993: 10-11). Odendaal (1994b: 7) believes that the policy tackled the problem of apartheid and colonialism. I hold that it did not, however, and that it merely points out the issues. By visualising the inequalities, however, the ANC policy was ahead of MUSA when re- negotiating apartheid structures. Whereas MUSA was openly criticised, very few writers criticised the ANC policy´s lack of insight into the museum sector. I contend that the policy was not debated because museologists did not want to be seen as pro-apartheid, because they did not know how the future political situation would handle the critique and quietly awaited the new guidelines for museums to survive the interim process.
Odendaal (1994b: 12) argues that the ANC was justified in not participating in MUSA because of the limitations and because CREATE suggested that MUSA should be retained in draft until it could be investigated by a more representative group. What Odendaal fails to address adequately is the ANC´s policy failure in dealing with the practical situation of museums.
This suggests lack of knowledge of museum structure which would benefit from broader insight into the practical work of the museum sector and not simply ideological suggestions.
The ANC policy proposes that museums should not just focus on letters and art, but on all modes of life, rights of people, value systems, beliefs and neglected history. The suggestion embodies Transformation of display and collection and is a reaction to the fact that Africans did not themselves represent heritage in museums and further regarded their heritage as oral.
What also embodies Transformation is the suggestion of human resources, affirmative action and empowerment through training programmes, redressing imbalances in collections and developing educational programmes. The ANC policy falls short in suggesting how this could be practically implemented. Wilmot (1993: 10-11) and Odendaal (1994b: 10) observe the suggestion for a National Heritage Council (NHC) as a unit that could care for policies, advise the government and distribute funds. The council was to serve as a middle-man between the museums and the government so that the interest of a broader community could be addressed.
The NHC´s role is at present being implemented and has started to affect the work of the museums.
Transformation was in many respects difficult for the Natal Museum, according to my informant Arthur (2006-05-02), who argued that the new government wanted change for the sake of change in order to show a difference. Arthur did not approve of the changes and argued in line with MUSA, which he saw as sensitive since it evolved before the election. He felt that the government wanted to show its difference from apartheid, e.g., in new facets of heritage and to recover heritage that was believed to be lost. He thought that the government did not understand that MUSA acted in the best interests of museums. He criticised the new people who came in from the top and failed to consider the museum workers. He regarded Transformation as a regression for museums from which they had not yet recovered.
The adjustments to a new political agenda were difficult, and the tone and critique in the Natal Museum´s Annual Report sharpened after 1994. I suggest that this had to do with loss of power and insecurity in a new political dispensation, and with a belief that the structural principles on which the museum was founded would be thrust out. The changes envisaged were intertwined with larger socio-political changes in general and produced a feeling of uncertainty. The museum was a symbol of eurocentric knowledge and culture and was about to be changed into an African institution that had only just defined itself ideologically.
Meanwhile the museums had to wait for new guidelines to follow.