The presentation of Democracy X by Iziko at the Castle of Good Hope from today till September 2004 is significant for a number of reasons:  the time, the place and the context of the museum all add meaning to the exhibition that is being launched this evening.

This exhibition is timed to celebrate the tenth anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic rule,

This exhibition also coincides with the heightened awareness of democratic processes following the successful 2004 elections. 

In marking the present, Democracy X takes the viewer back to the archaeological past and traces the long journey to democracy from the earliest traces of human symbolic expression to the moment when all South Africans were given the opportunity to make their cross on a ballot paper ten years ago.

The ‘X’ of the exhibition title can be read as voting for democracy. It can be read as the Roman numeral for ten. It can also be read as a symbol that demands the patriotic, young, up and coming South Africans to sustain the momentum of enhancing our democracy and for sustaining the hard-won constitutional rights that we now enjoy. 

Presenting Democracy X at the Castle of Good Hope gives the exhibition site-specific significance.

The Castle is an icon of South African history and since its construction in 1666 it has accrued many layers of meaning. The Castle is the oldest surviving colonial building in the country: a five-pointed fortress, the former seat of the Dutch and British governments, and military headquarters in Cape Town from colonial times, through the twentieth century to the post-apartheid period. 

For many South Africans the Castle was associated with white power and oppression, but since 1994 it has become a symbolic setting in which to reframe the past.

That this exhibition, which celebrates freedom, is taking place at the Castle indicates the success of our transformation programme as the democratic government over the past decade. 

New stories are being told at the Castle.  For example, the compelling installation, “Messages from the Moat” by the artist Sue Williamson, mounted by Iziko’s South African National Gallery in the basement of the nearby B-Block as part of their Decade of Democracy exhibition, elicits awareness of slavery at the Cape, and engages with the Castle as a site of memory. 

Democracy X is a visual narrative bringing together over 300 objects of historical and cultural importance. Most of these are from Iziko’s own collections but they are complemented by objects on loan from public and private collections throughout South Africa.

This is the first Iziko Social History exhibition that fully integrates the indigenous African collections and the colonial collections that were formerly housed in separate institutions – at the South African Museum and the South African Cultural History Museum, which is no more.

It is because of the significance of this exhibition that our Department of Arts and Culture found it necessary to inject an amount of R2,5million to an exhibition that brings to the fore all aspects of South African social and cultural history. We also made a further R4million available for the upgrading of the Iziko’s Exhibition site at the Castle.  

Democracy X exhibition gives substance to the amalgamation of national collections that occurred with the formation in 1998 of the Southern Flagship Institution (SFI), that was later renamed Iziko Museums of Cape Town.

The choice of the name Iziko signals a commitment to the important role that museums play in society as heritage centres, where knowledge is shared and passed on from one generation to the next. 

Iziko means a hearth in isiXhosa. It is the centre of the home where food is prepared, and where stories are told.  Story-telling is, indeed, one of the most fundamental characteristics of our humankind. It is an old tradition that today is talked about as an oral history. People of all cultures, in all parts of the world tell stories. Our very distant ancestors, sitting around a fire and sharing anecdotes probably laid the foundation for our development as social beings. 

A significant milestone in that development occurred when humans started to communicate with each other through material symbols, such as the wearing of personal ornaments. 

In the first room of Democracy X you will be able to see the 75 000-year-old perforated shells excavated by an Iziko associate, Dr Chris Henshilwood, at Blombos Cave near Still Bay in the southern Cape.  The small shells were probably strung as beads and worn as personal ornaments, which gives them the unique claim to being the earliest-known form of human adornment in the world.

For millennia before writing was developed material things, together with oral traditions, played an important role in transmitting cultural knowledge and building social relationships, and material culture remains a significant medium of communication. 

In one sense, museum collections are banks of social memory.  But institutional collections are shaped by historical processes - they are never entirely objective and they require both interrogation and interpretation to be meaningful. Nonetheless, in an age of digital simulation and virtual reality, museums have a special role to play in preserving the hard-copy of history.

Every tangible object has a story to tell, and the intangible dimensions of collections are as important as their material presence.  Iziko Museums as heritage institution has the challenge of acknowledging its own history, while making its collections relevant in the context of the present. This is the challenge that Democracy X sets out to meet.

Rare and everyday objects are shown in ways that present both well-known and less well-known historical narratives. There is a visual interplay between the objects and images on the exhibition. No boundaries are drawn between art and artefact - the focus is on expressive objects that bear the imprint of both history and creative imagination.  Most viewers will find something of their own past in this exhibition, even if, at times, the memories evoked are painful.

As a national heritage institution Iziko’s recently approved core business is “To manage and promote its unique combination of South Africa’s heritage collections, sites and services for the benefit of present and future generations”.  Democracy X puts this into practice. It shows that collections, which are at the centre of museum practice, are both inspirational and educational – a source of pride and a resource to be used in the service of society. 

Our education sector needs to acknowledge the important role of museums in enhancing education efforts of the country. We hope that exhibitions like Democracy X will attract a high number of scholars and encourage them to seriously consider careers in the heritage sector as a viable option.

We also need to find a way of integrating the heritage infrastructure of the country with our Tourism Development Strategies for a comprehensive response to the challenge of economic development and job creation.  

It is important to note that the improvements that are happening within the heritage sector are first and foremost for the benefit of South Africans. As South Africans, we need to re-orientate our minds, re-interpret our history and to ensure that a new national identity comes out of the process of nation building.

Ladies and gentlemen, Democracy X is a visual celebration of the long journey to democracy in South Africa. It is a visual celebration of the resilience and creativity of the people of South Africa.

It gives me great pleasure to declare this exhibition officially open and to invite you all to be fellow travelers.

I Thank you.