Apartheid is exactly where it belongs. In a museum.

The basic principle behind apartheid was simple; Segregate everything. Cut a clean line through a nation to divide black from white and keep them divided. The award winning museum communicates this by using dark images, sounds and atmosphere prevalent in that troubled era. It attempts to present a balanced account of 20th century South Africa and recounts the political upheavals beginning in the last century and moves on to the transition from a racist state into Africa’s beacon of hope as the century turned again. The stark exterior of the museum immediately brings to mind images of detention, oppression and division and sets the stage for an interactive journey through the darkest years of South African history. The path through the museum leads you on a journey beginning with segregation, the cornerstone of apartheid. It takes you back through the years of race classification, the 150 acts of apartheid, detentions and the oppression of the nationalist regime. We examined the right of black consciousness, the armed struggle and finally the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years of imprisonment which led to the final negotiations for peace. The Mandela exhibition was unique in the way it provided a layered glimpse of Mandela in all forms. It examined his undoubted strengths and greatness, but also his weaknesses too. The visit to the Apartheid museum is something that will live with me for a very long time. I, as I am sure many others walked in with a view of reading through some history and viewing relics collected during the separatist regime. It was that and so much more. It was as moving as it was confronting and you are immediately overcome when walking through the museum doors. For those that have visited the Nazi camps in Europe the sensations felt by visiting the Apartheid museum are similar. To think that all of this happened such a short time ago and its collapse was only sixteen years ago. It was uplifting to walk out knowing that the struggle for equality and hope was succeeded for many future generations of South Africans, unburdened by the ills of the past. “To be free is not merely to cast off ones chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others” N.Mandela.