A VIEW OF THE WEEK: We need to see through the smoke of a braai on Heritage Day

Tuesday is a public holiday, but I have always struggled with celebrating Heritage Day.

One year in school I wore casual clothes for a Heritage Day show-and-tell. I, as a many-generation South African, have become a walking melting pot of different identities and origins. So it has become harder to pinpoint a culture that I most identify with.

I suspect I am not alone.

But not even in my lamest scheming of how to present myself would I have devised a braai.

And yet, over the last decade or so the Heritage Day holiday has morphed into “Braai Day” for so many.

Cooking meat on a fire might be a popular pastime for most South Africans, but it is not unique to us. Most countries have food traditions hearkening back to the stone age practice of turning meat over a flame.

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Easier than facing an uncomfortable reality

Maybe the reason braaing has become the safe word is that the Heritage Day holiday itself is filled with controversy.

Originally the day was celebrated in KwaZulu-Natal as Shaka Day to remember the great Zulu king Shaka Zulu’s triumphs. With the dawn of democracy and the push for inclusivity, it became a holiday for all and not just some.

It was extended to celebrate not just Shaka and the Zulu nation but all nations and cultures in SA.

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Whose heritage?

But that is far too simple.

One person’s heritage of triumph is another’s trauma. That is the reality of a holiday, and a nation, steeped in a history of conflict, land grabs, and blood.

Any attempt to remember Shaka as a father of a nation, king and unifier for one part of the population dismisses the struggles and loss of the nations he conquered and those who descended from them.

Should the conquered celebrate the conquerer?

Those who remember the Afrikaaner Great Trek will have to acknowledge the bloody wheels that rolled through the Battle of Blood River and other conflicts with tribes whose land they were encroaching on.

Likewise, those who draw their heritage from the great colonialism and slavery waves that brought many to our shores.

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If the GNU was a holiday, it would be this one

For 30 years, we have tried to create a rainbow nation and a shared heritage.

Politicians who should be leading this have themselves spread division, tribalism, and alarm. In doing this they have undermined these efforts for their own gains.

Now they would have us believe that a Government of National Unity meant to represent all South Africans in government is the second unifying of the country, after the early 1990s.

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If that is true, we need to have constructive conversations, break stigmas, genuinely attempt to overcome prejudice, and strive for authentic nation-building.

Not hide our problems and insecurities behind smoke at the braai.

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