I refer to Willem Makkink’s letter in Grocott’s Mail (Tuesday 20 April) in which he raises the question
of the Old Gaol being converted to a prison museum and placing Grahamstown as the first South African city to have a prison museum.
I refer to Willem Makkink’s letter in Grocott’s Mail (Tuesday 20 April) in which he raises the question
of the Old Gaol being converted to a prison museum and placing Grahamstown as the first South African city to have a prison museum.
Firstly, this idea does not take into consideration that the state’s stretched out budget for arts, culture and heritage is currently having a severe impact on the stability and maintenance of so many South African museums.
One would only need to take a walk down to the Albany Museum in Somerset Street to talk to its management to hear about the funding challenges facing the museum sector in South Africa.
Sourcing funding for educational programmes is a major challenge that is faced by many museums nationally and internationally.
Secondly, the assumption that Grahamstown would house the only prison museum in South Africa is not correct. At the Constitution Court precinct in Johannesburg, the Women’s Jail and the Number 4 Prison in the Old Fort have both been converted into museums.
Winnie Mandela, the late Prof Fatima Meer and the notorious husband killing Daisy de Melker were detained at the women’s prison.
Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Joe Slovo, Bram Fischer, Albert Luthuli and Robert Sobukwe were imprisoned at the Number 4 Prison in the Old Fort.
And in Pretoria, the Police Museum officially opened in September 1968, includes a display of the police uniforms, insignia and medals; an exhibition of the modes of transport used by the police; and various photographic exhibitions.
In any event, what would a prison museum without any funding for curatorial staff, archival displays and education programmes have to offer?
Perhaps, a few empty cells with plaques dedicated to the many South African criminals who manage to fool both the judicial and criminal justice system?
And perhaps the courtyard in the Old Gaol dedicated to Grahamstown’s visionaries who so passionately and nostalgically campaign for the arrested development of Grahamstown?
Run as a backpackers, the Old Gaol might have its operational flaws but more than 1 000 international visitors who have either stayed at the backpackers or shared memorable moments in its precinct certainly can’t be all fools.
There is a growing international trend in the youth tourism market that is increasingly seeking out cost effective places to sleep at so that they could spend more of their disposable income on enjoying the social, cultural, educational and inspirational experiences that a city primes as its premiere tourism product.
The Old Gaol Backpackers caters significantly for this market that leaves behind their dollars, euros, pounds and rands in many of the places in Grahamstown.
While there has been much discussion about the possible closure of the Old Gaol Backpackers there have been hardly any questions raised about the educational centre that will take its place.
What connections will be drawn between the educational programmes on offer and the economic landscape of Grahamstown? The Old Gaol has done much to change the negative perceptions of this city.
When the multicultural voices resonate against its walls and the multi-cultural feet pound on its floors as they dance to the rhythmic sounds of African drums, the ghosts of the past who inhabited the Old Gaol are laid torest forever.
A city has every right to nostalgically celebrate its past but it has a greater responsibility to allow its institutions to be inherited by future generations.
