Jansen (the first Dean of Education at the University of Pretoria) had suggested our day to be a stark contrast as he had done with a group of his school- aged students in the Pretoria public schools.
Sneaky, but powerful!
Our discussion began with our reactions to the 2 nationalist monuments. We compared the white memorial and the black memorial.
The white monument was a traditional structure that shows how people are holding on to their pasts. Its story parallels how the American pilgrims came to take the land from the Native Americans and how they had to revolt against the British to earn their independence; meanwhile, requesting that the Native Americans pay takes and meet their demands.
The black memorial is a modern structure that gives hope for the future. It shows the systematic racism that compares with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The apartheid museum stresses that its intent is not to make white visitors feel guilty or the black visitors to feel bad, but to educate the youth and the population. (hmmm. . . why isn't there more representation for what the coloured, the Chinese or the Indians had to face during apartheid?).
It came as a surprise to learn that Jonathan Jansen did not approve of the apartheid museum.
The design of the museum would create a feeling of cognitive dissonance for many viewing an unfamiliar, unbelievable, and contrasting truth. It is truly hard to confront a believe system, a history that is different from the truths that you have been raised to believe your whole life. So imagine if a young white girl comes into the museum and here she sees such brutal and extreme living conditions of treatment of black people by 'her people', the white people. Does she automatically see it as a possible truth or something that she can learn to accept or quite simply does she refuse the idea and instead see it as a myth, a joke, something unreal? There would be shock, denial and a defensive approach. Will she take on a collective guilt? Will she feel afraid and confused because what she sees now in front of her does not match what her teachers and her parents have been telling her all along? Will she feel a strong anger because of the lies/ altered truths that she has been told all along?
What about an older person that has lived these misconceptions all of their lives and has based many of his/her decisions on these stories/beliefs all along?
There own personal narrative may be shattered. This would be scary.
That is why Jansen believes that the museum was designed for the audience of black students.
The goal and necessary mission of the apartheid museum, I believe, is to encourage visitors to suspend their previous judments and prejudices so that they can come in through the doors with an open mind and be willing to take on something unfamiliar and perhaps new.
The path of recognition to acceptance is what the fight has been about and what it will continue to be about!
Our meeting with him ran about 40 minutes longer than he had inteneded :) Both sides appeared motivated by the intellectual discussion.
Saturday's paper - he was on the front page - we were mentioned and because of our responses to our questions he was quotes as saying to us, "are you kidding?" It appears as though we were unprepared for what he said or perhaps unable to handle what it was that he was saying. However, I would like to think that we had earned his respect as a group and that we were able to give him an alternate perspective to even his own views.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment