Heritage Day: ‘Tjop en dop’ not the only culture

The idea of Heritage Day – which replaced Shaka Day celebrating the great Zulu leader – was that in celebrating our roots and our differences, South Africans would somehow come together and realise that our whole is truly bigger than the sum of all its parts.

And, in one sense, it has seen our people uniting over the two things which they really have in common – braaiing and boozing.

The divisive politics over the past decade – initiated by Jacob Zuma and executed in cold-blooded efficiency by his hired gun British PR company – have taken race relations to a new low, even if you do discount the hysteria on social media and the generally decent people out there who do unto others as they would have done to themselves.

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We wonder if focusing on the aspects of what makes us different is going to help form that national identity. Even the United States, the symbol of a polyglot jigsaw of peoples united under one flag, is creaking a bit these days with the fear of new immigrants.

Then there is the question of how to defend our cultures against the onslaught of the materialist, hedonist culture of the West, which can have a corrosive effect on the minds of the youth, particularly.

Writer Zakes Mda raised a point to ponder on X yesterday, when he posted: “ Every Heritage Day we hear a call that customs and traditions must be restored. For me it really depends which customs and traditions.”

He added: “I agree with composer Gustav Mahler when he says: ‘Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire.’”

Should we cling to traditions and customs which treat women as second-class citizens, for example? These are conversations we need to have… but perhaps not over a tjop en dop

ALSO READ: Inside Tshwane’s disused Women’s Living Heritage Monument [PHOTOS]