In light of celebrating democracy in 2024, the Library will be hosting the 14th Annual Manuscript Lecture as part of the Woordfees on 1 October at 12:00 in the SU Library auditorium. The theme of the lecture is “Democracy through the lens of primary documents at Special Collections” and will feature a panel discussion on democracy through the lens of primary documents at Special Collections. Participants will be asked, inter alia, to reflect on their interaction with primary resources.

Dr Marietjie Oelofsen, former IDASA member and current project manager at the Stellenbosch University Museum will facilitate the panel discussion. The invited participants are Riaan de Villiers, journalist, political researcher and author, Sherie Vollenhoven and Nkululeko Ndlovu, both BA Hons Journalism students. The event will also include a viewing of the democracy exhibition.

In celebration of 30 years of democracy and South Africa, the SU Library is currently presenting an exhibition, titled 1994–2024 – Democracy in South Africa: A History Told by Unique Library Collections, in front of the Learning Commons on the upper floor. The exhibition showcases rare and historically significant items from collections in the Special Collections division that chronicle the nation’s journey to democracy.

The exhibition focuses specifically on recently acquired collections that reflect a more comprehensive view of South Africa’s history, focusing on the road to democracy and decisive moments in the nation’s history. The exhibition is by no means an exhaustive expression of recent history as it is based on collections curated by the Library.

One of the main aims of the exhibition is to highlight the research value of manuscript collections. Researching these may lead to a deeper understanding of the historical context that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. Some of the collections featured, for example, the Foreign Debt Collection of 1985/86, contains rare documents that have not previously been examined and can shed light on the impact that negotiating the country’s foreign debt in the 1980’s had on the eventual release of Nelson Mandela.

Some of the highlights of the exhibition include:

  • Handwritten excerpt from “A prayer for the ANC” by Beyers Naudé, 1994.
  • A letter from Nelson Mandela indicating that the renegotiation of South African debt overseas in the 1980s played a major role in his liberation –an item from the South African Foreign Debt collection, 1985/1986.
  • The Frederik van Zyl Slabbert collection with various interesting items relating to his resignation from Parliament, views on apartheid and the need for reform debate.
  • The IDASA collection, focusing on material related to voter education before the 1994 election.

Author: Mimi Seyffert-Wirth