Nkunzi Nkabinde and Dorah Molefe are two of the 15 young Johannesburg residents who have been selected and trained as tourist guides at Constitution Hill. Nkunzi remembers her neighbour in Meadowlands very well — he used to talk incessantly about his fear of returning to Number Four, the name given to the notorious prison that separated Braamfontein from Hillbrow.
Molefe recalls the stories her father used to tell her about his detention at the same prison.
For both young women Number Four and the adjacent prisons, the Old Fort and the Women’s Jail, were a mysterious yet punitive complex infused with fear. Today these prison buildings have been preserved and incorporated into the Constitution Hill development and opened to visitors.
Alongside the Constitutional Court, which stands between them, they form the core of what promises to be an enlightening experience for South Africans and international visitors.
The selection process for these guides sought to find people with a combination of skills: storytelling ability, a keen interest in South Africa’s history, knowledge of contemporary politics, as well as experience in working with young people.
A further requirement was that candidates should speak at least three of South Africa’s official languages. This is particularly important, as Constitution Hill aims to attract local visitors and will be offering regular tours in Zulu and Sotho. The result of the selection process is a group of 15 dynamic young people drawn from the inner city, Soweto, Alexandra and the East Rand.
The guides’ training has been designed and managed by Ochre Media, which is responsible for heritage, education and tourism, a large component of the Constitution Hill Development Project, on behalf of the Johannesburg Development Agency.
Empower-Ed, specialists in tourism training, has been responsible for running the course and assessing the guides. This has been an intensive, six-month course that has combined theoretical training in constitutionalism, South African history, the history of prison architecture and the prison system today, with on-site training and interaction with ex-prisoners, the Constitutional Court judges, historians and prison researchers.
The highlight for many was the time Judge Albie Sachs spent showing them around and explaining the symbolism of the new court building, and the story behind each of the art works that form part of the court’s public collection.
The training has been a revelation for the guides. They were particularly touched by their interaction with ex-prisoners, who were invited to come back to participate in oral history workshops. The transcripts of interviews with individual ex-prisoners formed a key component of the training programme.
“I was shocked to hear about this place,” said Clement Masemola, a guide who lives in Alexandra.
“I thought I knew about apartheid, but it’s different when you hear people’s memories about how this place impacted on their lives. It surprised me to find out how people were treated here.
“Even learning about the kind of food they had to eat and how they got different things to eat depending on their race — that was very shocking for me”.
For Lungile Ndlovu, the most fascinating part of the training was what she learnt about Johannesburg’s past. “I never knew the buildings in the city were so old and had such a history. Like the fort — it’s over 100 years old! When you walk through it you can feel what Jo’burg used to be like. The Jameson Raid, the [Anglo-Boer South African War] — this fort has something to tell you about all of these events.”
The guides feel that this knowledge is particularly important for young South Africans, who do not always understand the historical forces that shaped their parents and grandparents’ lives — or the significance of the rights that they themselves command today.
“We’re quite blasé sometimes about all that we have,” says Thandokazi Mashiya. “This place shows us we shouldn’t judge our parents if they aren’t successful — they had to go through so much to achieve democracy.”
Unlike a traditional museum that is focused on preserving its collections, Constitution Hill is designed to be an interactive experience for visitors.
The guided tour is one of the key ways in which this interactivity will be encouraged, so that the site becomes a place of dialogue and discussion. The tour takes visitors on a journey through the prison buildings, on to the fort ramparts, which give one a vantage point over Johannesburg, and through the Constitutional Court. Visitors get a richly detailed account that brings the site and its stories to life.
The tour provides visitors with an understanding of how South Africa is building its future on the past.
The Constitution Hill message is an inspiring as well as a challenging one. As Ndlovu says: “The journey through Constitution Hill gives you an understanding of the past, gives you an avenue to express your feelings about the present and provides you with all the information you need about your rights under the Constitution.
“But it also leaves you with a question mark so that you ask yourself: What kind of a country do I want to live in and how can I help to make the ideals of the Constitution a reality?”