Berliner Tageblatt - Sello Hatang remembers actor Sol Rachilo through a personal archive

Sello Hatang, executive director of Re Hata Mmoho, has paid tribute to veteran South African actor Sol “Solrah” Rachilo, describing him as an artist whose private acts of remembrance carried the value of a personal archive.

Hatang said Rachilo visited him in 2021 while he was chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and delivered an A3 envelope filled with newspaper clippings. Many documented Hatang’s career from around the time he joined the foundation, and some had been laminated. Hatang retained the material concerning him and donated the rest to an archive.

During a later visit, Rachilo gave him a white teacup and saucer bearing the red inscription “I Remembered Comrade Sello Hatang, 2022.” Hatang said the ordinary objects assumed greater meaning after the actor’s death and became a record of their relationship.

Drawing on his archival work, Hatang said history survives only when people deliberately preserve photographs, letters, recordings and personal stories. He called for elders and veterans to be interviewed while they are alive and for their collections and memories to be digitised, including accounts of setbacks as well as achievements.

Hatang said African traditions have long carried history through storytellers, elders and human memory. He urged people to acknowledge others’ contributions before remembrance becomes memorial and thanked Rachilo for demonstrating that attention to another person’s journey can itself be a lasting gift.

F.Müller--BTB