World News | ‘Nelson Mandela Is Dead' Exhibition Inaugurated as South Africa Marks His 10th Death Anniversary

Johannesburg, Dec 5 (PTI) An exhibition of artworks that asks visitors to confront the undercurrents and consequences of the passing of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was inaugurated here on Tuesday to commemorate the 10th death anniversary of South Africa's former president who passed away on this day in 2013.

The exhibition titled ‘Nelson Mandela Is Dead' was organised by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

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“Over the past 10 years, we have felt the weight of the loss we suffered and the symbolic and practical meanings of his being missed," the Foundation said in a statement, adding that the exhibition was being held to creating a space to acknowledge and process this grief.

Drawing on titles such as ‘Sizwe Banzi Is Dead', a play by South African actors and playwrights Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, as well as ‘God Is Dead' by German philosopher and writer Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Nelson Mandela Is Dead' is an exhibition that asks visitors to confront the undercurrents and consequences of the passing of Nelson Mandela, it said.

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“So often, the question is asked: 'What would Mandela have said if he were here? What would he have done? Would things be like this if Nelson Mandela was still here?'," the Foundation said as it hinted at the massive problems confronting an embattled government battling corruption and looting of state enterprises that have left the country's electricity supply and transport infrastructure in chaos.

“Through this exhibition, we want to highlight the urgency of the context we live in and acknowledge that nobody is coming to save us,” it said.

Razia Saleh, Head of Archive and Research at the Foundation, said at the launch of the exhibition that it seeks to remind visitors that memory should not just focus on congratulatory or commemorative acts, but rather should serve as a public resource for social justice and liberatory futures.

“In remembering Madiba, we think not only of the present and the past but of the battles that lie ahead. As Madiba said of South Africa, 'The history of our country is characterised by too much forgetting. A forgetting which served the powerful and dispossessed the weak'," he said.

Keynote speaker Ndileka Mandela said her grandfather and his comrades would have wanted citizens today to ensure that the sacrifices he and his fellow prisoners had made for decades did not go in vain.

“So, it is our responsibility to ensure that the sacrifices that they made do not go to waste. South Africa has a lot of money. However, the money is misused. If officials can steal money during Covid that says a lot about us as a people. It also says a lot about us voting for people that continue to embezzle from public coffers, which means that we are being complicit in aiding and abetting thieves.

“We are also held responsible for the leaders that we choose. Let us remember the principles that my grandfather and his comrades stood for - social justice, equality, fight for peace. There is no Messiah to bail us out,” she said as she referred to the title of the exhibition.

“We are all emancipators so each and every one of us, when we commemorate these ten years, let us find what can I do to make sure that my country is much better, because it can't just belong to politicians. It belongs to all who live in it, as in the preamble of the Constitution. Let us reclaim it," Ndileka said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)