OPINION| What is the meaning of heritage on Heritage Day? - With so much attention given to heritage this month, why are South Africans generally not very interested in debates concerning what should be commemorated
“What is heritage?” is not a question likely to feature on the lips of many South Africans on 24 September, Heritage Day. This is despite children wearing traditional dress to school, or people putting on their Springbok jerseys or eating their boerewors rolls. is calling on people to donate towards South Africa’s national blood heritage and the Apartheid Museum is advertising Heritage Month on its Facebook page.
There are two reasons. The first lies with history — a close relation to heritage. Heritage is generally defined as an acknowledgement of historical artefacts, practices and sites which should be preserved for the benefit of future generations. However, the past is a fraught subject for many South Africans.
Words like “legacy” and “history” receive prominent attention on social media, but are often linked to expressions of pain and wounds connected to the past. Often when people post about national heritage symbols, or statues or other symbols of commemoration, they link these to the psychological wounds caused by a lack of social transformation which should have followed the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.
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