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Joburg’s Political Sands Shifting

Statement by Helen Zille – DA Johannesburg Mayoral Candidate:

Action SA Soweto-based Councillor Mandla Nyaqela and the chairs of five ASA branches in Soweto have announced they are joining the DA.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the activists and former Councillor to the DA. Those joining know the only way to get Joburg working is through getting the DA a majority. People are beginning to understand that the best way to get water, electricity, clean neighbourhoods, investment and jobs is through the kind of good governance that the DA has a record in delivering.

Councillor Nyaqela told journalists in Soweto that he had joined ASA with high expectations but has been sorely disillusioned, primarily because there is no space for debate. Nyaqela described ASA as a top-down dictatorship where one’s role as a member is seen as just receiving instructions. He said nobody was ever elected and all positions were appointed by one or two leaders at the top. He said it’s impossible to preach democracy from a party that is completely undemocratic.

Nyaqela was joined in his walkover by ASA’s branch chair from Ward 37, Sipho Magubane, the chairs of four other branches and fifty former ASA activists.

These new additions to the DA cause are the first of many who want to build a City with a better future.

Source – MyZA

Free Press Release Submissions from MyPR.co.za

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Museum Africa: Art Collection

The museum’s collection is staggering, housing approximately 850,000 objects that range from the prehistoric to the contemporary. It is one of the few institutions that attempts to tell the story of Southern Africa from the Stone Age to the nuclear age. The “Johannesburg Transformations” exhibition is the museum’s centerpiece, dragging the visitor through the chaotic evolution of the city. It doesn’t shy away from the grime; it features detailed reconstructions of “shack life,” the illegal “shebeens” (speakeasies) of the 1950s, and the vibrant but overcrowded “backyard rooms” that defined the black urban experience during Apartheid. One of its most sobering permanent displays is the “Tried for Treason” exhibit, which meticulously documents the 1956 Treason Trial. Visitors can see the portraits of all 156 accused—including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Albertina Sisulu—and read the “little red books” placed beneath each photo, where the public is invited to write their own reflections and facts about these liberation icons.

Deep within the museum’s labyrinthine halls, you’ll find specialized branches that are world-class in their own right. The Bensusan Museum of Photography sits on the top floor, acting as a shrine to the visual history of the continent. It contains everything from rare 19th-century daguerreotypes to the legendary photojournalism of the Drum magazine era. Meanwhile, the Geology Museum houses over 17,000 specimens, including a definitive collection of the rocks and minerals that made Johannesburg possible. It is a place where you can see the actual gold-bearing conglomerate reefs of the Witwatersrand up close, stripped of their commercial value and presented as scientific wonders.