Johannesburg: National Heritage Site Liliesleaf has closed down! [update]

update (22 June 2022): South Africa's Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) has plans to take control of the historic Liliesleaf Farm, currently a private museum, and establish it as a cultural institution. This would enable the DAC to to exercise control over the national heritage site.

update (23 February 2022): The Liliesleaf board of trustees in Rivonia has confirmed that the iconic institution is bankrupt.

One of South Africa's foremost national heritage sites, Liliesleaf in Johannesburg's suburb of Rivonia, has announced its closure. According to the founder and CEO of the Liliesleaf Trust, Nicholas Wolpe, the museum has been forced to close its doors indefinitely until it is able to secure operational funding again. Liliesleaf already faced several years of a funding crisis, which then got compounded and exacerbated by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Liliesleaf served as the secret headquarters and nerve centre of the African National Congress (ANC), South African Communist Party (SACP), Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Congress Alliance between 1961 and 1963. It was turned into a museum in 2009 and declared a National Heritage Site in 2016.

Johannesburg: Constitution Hill hosts an exhibition on how Australia helped end Apartheid!

The Australasian South African Alliance (ASAA), in partnership with the Australian High Commission in South Africa, Brand South Africa and Constitution Hill, has launched an exhibition titled "Memories of the Struggle: Australians Against Apartheid" in Johannesburg on 02 November 2017 at the Constitution Hill precinct. This multimedia exhibition is a photographic timeline of events that weaves together a narrative of Australia's involvement in the fight against apartheid. It will  share insights into the Australian contribution to the collapse of apartheid, such as the "Stop the Tours" movement which served to sever cricket and rugby relations with Apartheid South Africa. Such activism did not occur without political controversy or conflicts as related throughout the various sections of the exhibition.

The Constitution Hill precinct is located at 11 Kotze Street in Braamfontein, Johannesburg near the western end of the suburb of Hillbrow. The opening hours are daily from 09:00 to 17:00, with the final tour departing from the Visitor Centre at 16:00. Tickets for adults cost between R65 (1hrs highlights tour) and R350 (3hrs time travel tour). If you are visiting Constitution Hill as part of your City Sightseeing red bus tour, your red bus ticket entitles you to a 25% discount off your Constitution Hill ticket price on the day of your red bus trip.

Video: A virtual tour through the Liliesleaf Farm Museum (Johannesburg)

Once the headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) at that time, Liliesleaf is today an interactive museum that honours the lifes of South Africa's liberation struggle activists during the Apartheid era. The museum, situated in residential Rivonia in Johannesburg, is open 7 days a week from 08:30 - 17:00 during the week and from 09:00 - 16:00 on weekends. The standard self-tour costs R60.00, while the standard guided tour costs R110.00 and includes the entrance fee as well as a tour done by one of Liliesleaf's well-trained tour guides.

Apartheid Museum: Viral video campaign "A history forgotten - A future lost"

About two years ago the Apartheid Museum, located in Johannesburg, initiated the viral video campaign "A history forgotten - A future lost" (produced by tbwa) to display what average young South Africans nowadays know about their history and the oppression that was experienced under apartheid. The guys behind the cam interviewed various young people asking them to identify a series of famous people. First popular culture icons and lastly a famous anti-apartheid leader. Watch the six short videos to see what their answers were.

The Apartheid Museum, which opened in 2001, is a museum complex in Johannesburg, dedicated to illustrating the rise and fall of apartheid and the 20th century history of South Africa. Open from 9am-5pm, the Museum is closed Mondays, Good Friday and Christmas Day.

BBC documentaries podcast: South Africa's Path to Freedom

The BBC is back with another interesting documentary podcast about South Africa. Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian author Wole Soyinka travels to South Africa to assess the past and present of the rainbow nation through the eyes of its finest writers. How has the post-Apartheid nation evolved?

South Africa's Path to Freedom - part one (09 June 2010) >>
In Part One Wole Soyinka talks to writers and artists in Johannesburg who lived through Apartheid.

South Africa's Path to Freedom - part two (17 June 2010) >>
In Part Two Wole Soyinka explores the impact of Apartheid on the new generation of intellectuals and activists in Cape Town

more BBC podcasts on this blog >>

podcasts from & about Southern Africa >>

South Africa's Apartheid Museum >>

Recording of Mandela's first press conference after he was released from prison 1990

I just had a look on zoopy.com and found a recording of Nelson Mandela's first press conference after he was released from prison on 11 Feb 1990. The audio file was recorded by Bush Radio at Bishop's Court. Wow!

Robben Island tours >>
get Mandela's autobiograhpy "Long Walk To Freedom"
in the TravelComments.com eShop >>

Movies not to be missed: Skin (2008)

Skin is one of the most moving stories to emerge from apartheid South Africa: Sandra Laing is a black child born in the 1950s to white Afrikaners, unaware of their black ancestry. Her parents are rural shopkeepers serving the local black community, who lovingly bring her up as their ‘white’ little girl. But at the age of ten, Sandra is driven out of white society. The film follows Sandra’s thirty-year journey from rejection to acceptance, betrayal to reconciliation, as she struggles to define her place in a changing world - and triumphs against all odds. [src.]

The film got released 2008 in Canada & the US, in 2009 all over Europe and premiered in South Africa at the 22. Jan 2010. The DVD of the movie is already out in the UK and can be bought on amazon.co.uk. Judith Stein's book "When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race" about Sandra Laing's life can be bought from the TravelComments.com eShop.

Endgame (2009)

Endgame - Trailer - The best video clips are here
A deadly behind-the-scenes game of cat and mouse ensues in this gripping and sophisticated political thriller. Drawing on actual events, a British businessman initiates secret talks between the outlawed, terrorist-labeled African National Congress and white intellectuals to try and find a peaceful resolution to the cruel and brutal apartheid conflict in South Africa.
The story is based upon the book The Fall of Apartheid: The Inside Story from Smuts to Mbeki by Robert Harvey. The film had its world premiere on 18 January 2009 at the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK on 4 May 2009. It will have an international theatrical release some time later this year or in 2010.

"The Fall of Apartheid: The Inside Story from Smuts to Mbeki" in the TravelComments.com eShop >>

Cape Town's Robben Island

Robben Island, or "Robbeneiland" in Afrikaans (meaning "seal island"), has been used to isolate certain people (mainly prisoners, but it was also used as a leper colony and an animal quarantine station) since the 17th century. In the Second World War, the island was fortified and guns were installed as part of the defences for Cape Town. Later on, during the Apartheid era in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Kgalema Motlanthe, alongside many other political prisoners, spent decades imprisoned on the island.

The island in Cape Town's Table Bay (about 7km off the coast) is 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is rather flat and only a few meters above sea level.
Some years after the end of Apartheid the island was turned into a museum (Robben Island Museum) and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999. All tours on the island are led by guides who were formerly prisoners on Robben Island. Ferries to get there depart at 9am, 11am, 1pm and 3pm, weather permitting, from Nelson Mandela Gateway, at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town.

Walk to Freedom Tour including Robben Island
Departs: Daily, year round
Start Times: Approximately 8.30am
Duration: 8 hours
The day begins with a visit to the cobbled streets, brightly coloured houses and mosques of the Bo Kaap (Malay Quarter) and then continue to the District Six Museum, which documents the tragic disintegration of this once-vibrant community by the Apartheid Government. Experience a slice of township life in Langa - the oldest Apartheid housing scheme in the Western Cape and Guguletu including the opportunity to visit a shebeen (pub!). Contemplate this land of contrasts over lunch in the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront district before embarking on a three-hour cruise of the bay and visit to Robben Island to follow in the footsteps of Nelsen Mandela.

more info & online booking >>

Movie recommendation: "Catch a Fire" (2006)

The plot of "Catch a Fire" is based on a true story that happend in South Africa in the 1980ies. The dramatic thriller, made in 2006, is about a young, rather apolitical man named Patrick Chamusso who is getting accused of carrying out an attack against the Apartheid government. The antagonist is the policeman Nic Vos, played by Tim Robbins, who is in charge of locating the perpetrators of a recent bomb attack. Somehow Patrick, played by Derek Luke, is getting swept into the investigation of the bomb attack...

get the movie on amazon.com >>
get the movie on amazon.co.uk >>
get the movie on amazon.de >>