‘This is no African heritage but that of oppressors’ – EFF

The red berets are in no celebratory mood on Heritage Day, saying it was yet another year where black people are without land and remain on the outskirts of the economy and means of production.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said in a statement heritage, which speaks to the cultural fabric and history of society, was determined and crafted by those who control what was regarded as worthy of remembering and observing.

“It is clear in South Africa that we have inherited a culture of being conquered and have made into monuments the genocidal racists who have stripped Africans of their dignity and place in our land. As part of our culture, we have cemented an anthem of racists in our national anthem, and have allowed the names of those who plundered this country and colonised this continent to occupy places of significance such as street names and statues,” the party said.

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The EFF critically said today was a feeble attempt at unifying cultures and heritages which are fundamentally at odds with each other and have a contradicting history, without changing the socioeconomic conditions of these contesting cultures.

On the one hand is the culture and heritage of African people, which is that of resistance to conquest, and on the other hand is the culture and heritage of genocidal racists, whose identity and history in this country is the disrespect and dispossession of African life.

“As we mark this year’s observation of heritage, we have to ask ourselves today if the position of natives in the social, economic and historical positioning in this geo-political space now called South African has changed in any way. And if it has not, what then, is our heritage?” the party said.

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The EFF said the struggle for liberation has always been about reclaiming land, African culture and heritage, uprooting greed brought by Europeans, saying SA has spectacularly failed to reimagine and reposition natives in the post 1994 imagination of the country.

Natives are still landless, natives are still beggars in the land of their own, the party said, that and Europeans settlers still had everything they attained as a result of colonialism and apartheid.

The failure to restructure SA society, the party charged, lies squarely with the ruling African elite and that what SA presently had was not an African heritage, but that of oppressors who came here to steal and murder.

The party added that landless people can never truly celebrate Heritage, and that the task was fulfilling the generational mission of land return, in order to pay true homage to forebears.