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Celebrate your culture, your heritage

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Every year on September 24, South Africa celebrates Heritage Day. This year the day is marked under the theme: ‘Celebrating the Heroes and Heroines of the Liberation Struggle in South Africa.’ The aim of the 2011 Heritage Month is to help remind and reconnect the nation with its rich and diverse collective liberation heritage.

This theme will not only allow national, provincial and local spheres of government to celebrate the lasting legacy of the national liberation struggle, but will contribute towards the revival of political and socio-cultural consciousness across the country. Hoping to capture the imagination of the country as well as assist in promoting inter-generational dialogue and has great prospects in receiving priority from all tiers of government.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe is scheduled to address the national Heritage Day celebrations on 24 September, 2011, in Mpumalanga. Messages of support from other political parties represented in Parliament will also be delivered at the main event.

In a statement issued by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, 17 September 1996, it stated:

“The day is one of our newly created public holidays and its significance rests in recognising aspects of South African culture which are both tangible and difficult to pin down: creative expression, our historical inheritance, language, the food we eat as well as the land in which we live.

“Within a broader social and political context, the day’s events…are a powerful agent for promulgating a South African identity, fostering reconciliation and promoting the notion that variety is a national asset as opposed to igniting conflict.

“Heritage has defined as “that which we inherit: the sum total of wild life and scenic parks, sites of scientific or historical importance, national monuments, historic buildings, works of art, literature and music, oral traditions and museum collections together with their documentation.”

In an address marking Heritage Day in 1996, (former) President Nelson Mandela 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. We did so knowing that the struggles against the injustice and inequities of the past are part of our national identity; they are part of our culture. We knew that, if indeed our nation has to rise like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes of division and conflict, we had to acknowledge those whose selfless efforts and talents were dedicated to this goal of non-racial democracy.”

Over the last few years, South African’s have also dubbed the public holiday National Braai Day to commemorate a wonderful pastime that all South Africans, no matter their colour or creed, enjoy.

Tutu is the patron of the ‘Braai for Heritage’ campaign which is celebrated on September 24, an official public holiday to mark the nation’s multi-cultural heritage after the fall of apartheid in 1994. The archbishop emeritus said the fireplace was a traditional gathering place in Africa and that anything from meat to vegetables could be put on a braai, a pastime enjoyed by South Africans of all races.

“We want to continue that tradition of all of us gathering on September 24, braaing for our heritage,” he said. “The important thing is all of us on that one day again getting together and just enjoying the fact of being South Africans.”

Tutu braaing

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