Mandela’s mementos: Icons are key to a country’s history

Nelson Mandela is our icon. He is the one who should forever remind us that one human being is not better than another simply because of their skin colour.

He should forever remind us that democracy is a precious gift and that while many South Africans fought and died to win it, we should always be prepared to fight to preserve it.

At the same time, we also need objects to remind us of our past:

• the photographs of the Sharpeville Massacre,
• the “Whites Only” signs on our park benches,
• the image of the dying Hector Pieterson being carried away from the bullets in Soweto in 1976.

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These are objects, icons in their own right, which belong to us, as South Africans, and which should never be removed because they are part of our history.

Philosopher and writer George Santayana is often credited with the saying, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

But, for there to be the persistence of memory to truly remember history and not repeat its horrors and mistakes, one needs icons and objects.

So, we fully support moves to repatriate to this country a collection of objects related to Madiba – and particularly the key to his jail cell on Robben Island.

His 27 years there symbolised the struggle against apartheid and that key is the symbol of how people’s freedom was taken away from them and how their dreams were locked up.

These objects – which were due to go on auction overseas – must be returned to our country and those who allegedly illegally exported them without permits should be brought to book.

Foreigners should also be given a clear message that removing the historical and cultural treasures of a people is nothing less than a crime against humanity, just as apartheid was.

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