ABSTRACT
This chapter articulates the importance of memorialisation as a decolonial national rehumanising initiative and a force for radical transformation, predicated on the interpretation of the significance of Freedom Park in South Africa. It frames and acknowledges that memorialisation has always been a highly political process, reflective of, and shot through by, power games. Reconsiderations of memorialisation and, particularly, a clear call for the decommissioning of colonial/apartheid statues, symbols and iconography, then re-emerged as part of the decolonisation and Africanisation processes. South Africa has always been desperate for a form of memorialisation that re-members rather than dismembers as an essential prerequisite for enabling the formation and crystallisation of a new, national, rainbow community that is diverse yet equal. The challenge that faced the new leadership of South Africa after 1994 was how to creatively turn legacies of division into sources of national unity.
