Heritage Day should be about more than braais and ‘Jerusalema’

Our Heritage Day should be more than just about song and dance.

It should be about us going back to a time and place where we used to be people of Ubuntu, a people of integrity and principles.

For as long as I can remember, people have been sharing their brilliant business ideas with me. Many of those ideas have turned out to be profitable. Other ideas have been very fulfilling to those who trusted me enough to share their intellectual property with me. Not even once did I ever betray or steal an idea that wasn’t mine.

That is the rich heritage of honesty, trustworthiness, accountability and Ubuntu that I was engulfed in while growing up.

During my schooling days, I used to do a lot of peer-reviewing on assignments, essays and presentations for my mates. It was about the unspoken rule of not plagiarising people’s work and giving them the honest feedback they need in order to fine-tune their ideas or work. I never went out to copy any of their ideas. In fact, the older I get, the more normal it becomes to respect people, their ideas and thoughts.

Again, for me, it is the rich heritage of honesty, trustworthiness, accountability and Ubuntu that I was engulfed in while growing up that triumphs.

Seemingly, a lot has changed over the years and people are more concerned about their own gainings and progress at the expense of others. Perhaps before we get our dance moves ready for the Jerusalema Dance routine as instructed by the first citizen of our country, we should first go back to our rich heritage of honesty, trustworthiness, accountability and Ubuntu.

Whether Somizi Mhlongo stole someone’s idea or not is for the court of the law to decide. However, we live in a South Africa that is so unjust to the poor and the marginalised. I am talking about the downtrodden. In today’s world, blacks are oppressed by other blacks. Blacks are sabotaged, betrayed and sidelined by their own black brothers and sisters.

Since Heritage month is also about embracing our native languages, I remember a song that says, “Umuntu omnyama akafuni ukubon’ umuntu omnyama yea phambili, phezulu.” Loosely translated, it means, “A black person doesn’t want to see another black person succeed.”

That is the daily reality of many black people in South Africa. There is a sense of dishonesty that reigns supreme. Many young people are sitting with ideas at home that need someone to give them an opportunity to pitch, and if approved, they can fully support them and not rob them of anything.

As for the Somizi saga, I pray that justice prevails. I pray that this story doesn’t faint like the many similar stories of this nature. I hope he is cleared and not found guilty so that hope is restored in many hopefuls that they can be helped by people who have already made it. And if he is guilty, I hope he gets punished for it; so that those who are in the business of stealing other people’s ideas and make them their own can learn from this.

For all of us, I hope and pray that we go back to embracing the heritage of honesty, trustworthiness, accountability and Ubuntu. Because more than anything, we need this.

So, if you are going to be dancing to Jerusalema, may we understand the lyrical content that reminds us that our home is Jerusalem, a home of uprightness, hopefulness, thoughtfulness and selflessness.

A happy Heritage Day.

Kabelo Chabalala is the founder and chairperson of the Young Men Movement (YMM), an organisation that focuses on the reconstruction of the socialisation of boys to create a new cohort of men. Email, kabelo03chabalala@gmail.com; Twitter, @KabeloJay; Facebook, Kabelo Chabalala

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