Silent Voices, Emerging Stories
The conference was a joint venture with the Provincial Oral History Department of Mpumalanga and explored the phenomenon of a people whose own perspective of history has for years been suppressed and ignored in favour of the racist perspective of the oppressive apartheid regime. ”Until a lion writes its own history, it is the history of the hunter that will be told”, said one speaker. The Bridging Ages principle of ”history from below” and the perspective of the ”ordinary person” was the common link between Historic Environment Education and Oral History.
A Time Travel to 1922 made the ”bottom up” perspective a reality as the plight of black miners amidst a white miners’ strike was reconstructed at the site of a former mining compound. Whilst the story of the white miners, whose slogan was “Workers of the World unite and fight for a White South Africa” is well documented, the perspective of those on the receiving end, those who lost out on income because of the strike, the thousands of black workers, was largely ignored.
The conference was concluded with excellent papers from learners who presented their oral history research to an appreciative audience. A new Bridging Ages South Africa Board was also elected for a term of two years. The Chairperson is Tizzie Mangiagalli who will serve a second term.
Louis MaraisCoordinator Bridging Ages South Africa
