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COVID-19 pandemic deprives liberation heritage sites of money and knowledge

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The development of the African Liberation Heritage Programme, an emerging and relatively vulnerable part of the heritage of humanity, has been set back due to COVID-19.

The National Heritage Council of South Africa hosted a webinar where speakers from across Southern Africa discussed the impact the pandemic has had on their liberation heritage sites, including Robben Island and the District Six museum.

Africa’s Road to Liberation has always been told through the eyes of the hunter and not the hunted. To rectify this, Unesco adopted the African Liberation Heritage Program in 2005 which was endorsed by the African Union.

Chairperson of the National Heritage Council of South Africa, Edgar Neluvhalani, says the success of the program is extremely important because African Liberation Heritage is an endangered form of heritage.

“Because of its recency and very contested nature, it is a very abused kind of heritage in regards to the search for peace and cohesion. It is often perceived as partisan. It is not easy to locate because it was produced in conditions of clandestine and at risk of colonial aggression. Charlatans are not afraid to claim it as theirs and distort it off course,” says Neluvhalani.

To prevent the distortion of the liberation story, several Southern African countries, including Tanzania, Angola, Zimbabwe and South Africa identified new and existing heritage sites to form part of the African Liberation Heritage Program. And then the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The development of identified heritage sites were put on hold as budgets shrank and money was diverted.

Dr. Ziva Domingos, director of Angola Museums, says their government approved to re-convert an old Portuguese fort into a national liberation museum.

“There are maintenance actions that are carried out to conserve and protect the fort facilities while waiting for the funds to complete the project,’ says Domingos.

The pandemic has not only deprived liberation heritage sites of money but also of knowledge.

“We’ve lost many people, elders particularly, who formed an important part of our membership and were part of the movement around the District Six museum. This has had a direct impact on our oral history and education programs,” says Mandy Sanger, Head of Education at the District 6 Museum in Cape Town.

Paul Mupira, Regional Director of National Museums and Monuments in Zimbabwe, says veterans of the liberation are getting older and the pandemic is not kind to them.

“Most of those that have succumbed have had to do with illnesses related to COVID-19. So quite a lot of information is being lost and this has implications on the amount of information we are able to get and its diversity as well as the management of the archives,” says Mupira.

As if the loss of knowledge, funding and visitors is not bad enough – current liberation heritage sites like Robben Island, also have to contend with climate change.

Khensani Maluleke, Chairperson of the Robben Island museum council says global warming could pose a threat to the island.

“Given the situation of the Island, we’re not sure if we will have the island in a hundred years based on this global warming. If it happens in 100 years, through global warming that we lose the island is there any plan B? There is a study that we undertook as the island, to explore the possibility of having a mainland facility,” says Maluleke.

The speakers all agreed, they were ill-prepared for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. They recommended that research must be urgently done to protect, especially the oral history of liberation struggles across the continent, to digitize where possible and to make access to the information easier. They agree on a need for diverse income streams and to maintain and protect the sites.

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