South Africa 2010 - Pretoria/Tshwane

Built as a monument to democracy and memorial to those who sacrificed to bring freedom to South Africa, Freedom Park is on a hill near the Union Buildings in Pretoria. The park was not fully open yet, but they had a nice tour of the completed parts and showing the plans for the museum.

In this distance, you can see the Voortrekker Monument, built in the 1940s to honor the Dutch Afrikaaners who settled Guateng in the 1830s and 1840s. As a sign of unity, the long term plan is to build a bridge connecting Freedom Park and the Voortrekker Monument.


This buildings on the hill are the University of South Africa (Unisa).

Isivivane is a monument that is means as a "resting place for the spirits of those who died in the struggles for humanity and freedom."
To enter, visitors must remove their shoes. Our tour group was an interesting mix of South Africans and a few visitors. A group of Afrikaaners got upset about the shoe removal and complained that the tour guide wasn't living up to the unity spirit by dividing visitors in this way (you can see them in the later pictures one the shoed side of the monument). I'm sure there was more going on here about the religious symbolism of removing shoes, but it seemed very rude and contrary to the unity spirit to me.

As further support for the spirit of unity, the wall of names contains names of everyone who sacrificed for South Africa including victims of the colonial wars, South Africa's troops in WWI and WWII, and the struggle against apartheid.