Its almost time for Heritage Month in South Africa.
In 2014, Heritage Day also known as the Braai Day will be celebrated on 24 September.
There are various ways in which South Africans will be joining in on the festivities of Heritage Month.
In Kwa-Zulu Natal Heritage day is known as Shaka Day in order to commemorate the Zulu King Shaka.
The reason for the public holiday is that the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), a South African political party with a large Zulu membership, rejected the Public Holidays Bill presented to Parliament which did not include 24 September to be a public holiday.
In an address given by the late President Nelson Mandela in 1996 he said, “When our first democratically-elected government decided to make Heritage Day one of our national days, we did so because we knew that our rich and varied cultural heritage has a profound power to help build our new nation.”
The change in theory to Braai Day is a relatively new initiative by Braai4Heritage.
This would mean instead of celebrating our own individual heritage, South Africans would unite in a shared culture of a braai.
In 2007 Archbishop Desmond Tutu made a statement, supporting the idea saying, ” When we all gather around one fire…It’s a fantastic thing, a very simple idea. Irrespective of your politics, of your culture, of your race, of your whatever, hierdie ding doen ons saam [this thing we do together] … just South Africans doing one thing together, and recognising that we are a fantastic nation.”
Details: www.braai.com
