June 28, 2007
By Ndaba Dlamini
The story of the thousands of people who contributed to the drafting of the Freedom Charter is now permanently inscribed at the new Kliptown Open Air Museum.
The museum, on the western wing of the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication in Kliptown, Soweto, was officially opened by Johannesburg Executive Mayor Amos Masondo on Tuesday, 26 June. Masondo said the day was significant in that it coincided with the 52nd anniversary of the Congress of the People.
He said the Kliptown Open Air Museum sought to ensure that in decades to come the story of the thousands of people who contributed to the Freedom Charter was available to be told. "The story of the charter and its significance will be told time and time again, not only to the many visitors who will come here but to the broader public and indeed to humanity."
The museum will be managed as part of the Soweto flagship institution, which includes the Hector Pieterson Museum and the Mandela Family Museum, and is expected to attract local and international visitors. Chief curator of the Kliptown Open Air Museum, Ali Hlongwane, said its opening signified a turning point in the history of the suburb.
The exterior of the museum, facing Kliptown Square
"The museum takes visitors through a commemorative history of the drafting of the Freedom Charter and the role of the various interest groups that took part in the whole process."
Various methods are used to document the charter's history. Photographs, historical documents, news clippings from the New Age newspaper and Drum magazine, handmade wire sculptures of specific people who helped to draft the charter - like Professor ZK Matthews, Walter Sisulu, Dorothy Nyembe and Lillian Ngoyi - are all on display.
There are artefacts of people who travelled from all four corners of the country to witness the approval of the charter, while oral testimonies and songs sung during the 1955 gathering in Kliptown play in the background.
Taking guests at the function back to the days when the Freedom Charter was drafted, Masondo said the idea of the charter was first proposed by Matthews at the ANC Cape provincial conference held in Cradock in 1953.
"Within months the ANC national conference accepted the proposal and a Council of the Congress of the People was created, with Chief Albert Luthuli as chairman and Walter Sisulu and Yusuf Cachalia as joint secretaries. The Congress of the People was to create a framework for a new South Africa. Suggestions for the charter were to come from people themselves," Masondo explained.
Luthuli issued a call in May 1954, urging volunteers to travel the length and breadth of South Africa to collect demands and to encourage people to have their say and to explain their vision of a democratic South Africa.
Then, on 26 June 1955, thousands of delegates gathered in Kliptown, including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Helen Joseph and Father Trevor Huddleston, to approve the Freedom Charter.
"The charter called for the abolition of racial discrimination and the achievement of equal rights for all. It welcomed all those who embraced its core values to strive for a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa. It captured the hopes and dreams of the people and outlined in brief the freedom that was envisaged."
It identified challenges in a way that related to the world, Masondo said. "It speaks of decent housing, affordable rentals, food, healthcare, transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crèches, addressing the needs of the disabled people, leisure and recreation and the abolition of ghettos and laws that break up families."
Opening the museum complemented the City's vision of building Johannesburg into a world-class African city through its Growth and Development Strategy and the Integrated Development Plan.
"Through these strategy documents, we are seeking to address the challenges of urbanisation and migration, economic development and job creation, service delivery, poverty, urban renewal and regeneration, globalisation, information technology, bridging the digital divide and other related questions."
In closing, Masondo said the museum would not only preserve the story of the Freedom Charter for posterity, but it was also a way to "jolt our minds not to forget who we are and where we come from".
"Let us not forget that ours is the responsibility to turn the Freedom Charter, the fundamental platform of all democratic forces, into reality," he said.
The Kliptown Open Air Museum is at the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication in Kliptown, Soweto. It is open to the public from 10am to 5pm on Monday to Saturday and from 10am to 4.30pm on Sundays; entrance is free.
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