Our heritage is unbelievably diverse; our history is equal parts appalling and inspirational; our story isn’t simple.
Johannesburg - It’s a long weekend, but it’s not just any long weekend, it’s the Heritage Day long weekend. National Braai Day has seamlessly morphed into a three-day fest of sizzling boerewors, steaming pap and chakalaka; definitely beer and probably brandy.
There’s a heritage match on today; the 100th test between rugby’s greatest rivals, New Zealand’s All Blacks and our no longer all-white Springboks. It will be violent and brutal – whether against us or by us remains to be seen. In a way that’s probably more a leitmotif of our heritage than anything else; the violence that is, not the rugby.
It’s difficult to think back to the accepted start of our historical continuum – 1652 – which has become the convenient rallying point for all today’s ills, real and imagined, and think of a time when one group of us wasn’tthe hell out of the other. There’s always been either a jostle for privilege and power or a desperate attempt once one group gets to the top to stop anyone dislodging them.
In the old days, political opponents were detained without trial, tortured and killed. These days, they are assassinated. There was the Rooi Gevaar, the Swart Gevaar and Hoggenheimer. Today, there’s the Stellenbosch Mafia and White Monopoly Capital. Identity politics and racial laagers are as much our heritage as Dingaan and Piet Retief.Hugo bel die polisie
” , what looked like a braai gone bad, but was actually the Romeo and Juliet of the plots of Pretoria North, literally completed with a one-legged man in an arse-kicking competition.
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