heritage day
Yesterday was Heritage Day in South Africa.
It is a day where we are intended to celebrate our individual and common heritage, and while I think it is a great idea (public holidays are always a great idea!) I must admit that it doesn't quite work for me in the South Africa of 2010, where bigotry and suspicion of "the other" are more common that a pride in a common heritage.
Many of the people I know identify most strongly with their tribe. Others define themselves by their language group, and I can understand that. My literary heritage is almost all English. I love so much about England: the weather, the landscape, the architecture, the history (which I know as well as South African history).
But, that said, I am not British and aren't likely to ever get a British passport.
Many of the things that traditionally (and very one-dimensionally) define a South African don't resonate with me. I don't watch rugby or cricket, don't drink beer, very seldom eat braai (barbecue) and have never had a brandy and coke. I don't feel a strong affinity with most of the people I see around me.
I know for sure that I am African... the continent with its harsh beauty sings to my soul ... but most of the time I feel more strongly about the continent than I do about the small corner where I live.
But, in spite of that, we'll continue to fly the South African flag outside our front door (and not only because it annoys the neighbours ... ) We put it up during the World Cup when everyone was flying the flag, and decided it would be wrong to take it down just because the football fans had gone home.
For so many years, being a white South African meant that you were a pariah. It was not something that I could proclaim with pride, and my skin still crawls when I see people harking back to the "good old days" of unwarranted privilege and flying the old South African flag. I still hate the fact that people from here and abroad make assumptions about my attitudes based on my skin colour. I despair when certain sectors of the "new" South Africa claim the struggle as their own, as if no one else ever contributed or gave their lives because they, too, believed in freedom. For me, the flag of South Africa, with its "welcoming arms", is a symbol of what we all went through to get to where we are today.
It is my profound hope that one day, all South Africans will be able to feel a sense of belonging, and that Heritage Day will be a meaningful time of mutual respect for all of us.
I hope that one day, we will live according to the Freedom Charter (a document that was never intended to be the property of just one political group) which was signed in June 1955 and still resonates today.
We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:
These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives. Until we have won our liberty.
It is a day where we are intended to celebrate our individual and common heritage, and while I think it is a great idea (public holidays are always a great idea!) I must admit that it doesn't quite work for me in the South Africa of 2010, where bigotry and suspicion of "the other" are more common that a pride in a common heritage.
Many of the people I know identify most strongly with their tribe. Others define themselves by their language group, and I can understand that. My literary heritage is almost all English. I love so much about England: the weather, the landscape, the architecture, the history (which I know as well as South African history).
But, that said, I am not British and aren't likely to ever get a British passport.
Many of the things that traditionally (and very one-dimensionally) define a South African don't resonate with me. I don't watch rugby or cricket, don't drink beer, very seldom eat braai (barbecue) and have never had a brandy and coke. I don't feel a strong affinity with most of the people I see around me.
I know for sure that I am African... the continent with its harsh beauty sings to my soul ... but most of the time I feel more strongly about the continent than I do about the small corner where I live.
But, in spite of that, we'll continue to fly the South African flag outside our front door (and not only because it annoys the neighbours ... ) We put it up during the World Cup when everyone was flying the flag, and decided it would be wrong to take it down just because the football fans had gone home.
For so many years, being a white South African meant that you were a pariah. It was not something that I could proclaim with pride, and my skin still crawls when I see people harking back to the "good old days" of unwarranted privilege and flying the old South African flag. I still hate the fact that people from here and abroad make assumptions about my attitudes based on my skin colour. I despair when certain sectors of the "new" South Africa claim the struggle as their own, as if no one else ever contributed or gave their lives because they, too, believed in freedom. For me, the flag of South Africa, with its "welcoming arms", is a symbol of what we all went through to get to where we are today.
It is my profound hope that one day, all South Africans will be able to feel a sense of belonging, and that Heritage Day will be a meaningful time of mutual respect for all of us.
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| This graffiti on a door in Woodstock, Cape Town, really sums up for me how far we have strayed from the ideals of the Freedom Charter |
We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:
- That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
- That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
- That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
- That only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;
- And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter;
- And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.
- Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a candidate for all bodies which make laws;
- All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the country;
- The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour or sex;
- All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government.
- There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races;
- All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to develop their own folk culture and customs;
- All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their race and national pride;
- The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination and contempt shall be a punishable crime;
- All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.
- The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people;
- The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
- All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people;
- All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.
- Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
- The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
- Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
- All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
- People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished.
- No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair trial;
- No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official;
- The courts shall be representative of all the people;
- Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance;
- The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and shall be the helpers and protectors of the people;
- All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall be repealed.All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!
- The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their children;
- The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by law;
- All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;
- Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall be abolished.
- All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
- The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to draw full unemployment benefits;
- Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
- There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage, paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave on full pay for all working mothers;
- Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have the same rights as all others who work;
- Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour shall be abolished.
- The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent for the enhancement of our cultural life;
- All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;
- The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;
- Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children;
- Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit;
- Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;
- Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;
- The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be abolished.
- All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;
- Unused housing space shall be made available to the people;
- Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go hungry;
- A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state;
- Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with special care for mothers and young children;
- Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crèches and social centres;
- The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state.
- Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws which break up families shall be repealed.
- South Africa shall be a fully independent state which respects the rights and sovereignty of all nations;
- South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war;
- Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all;
- The people of the protectorates Basutoland (Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Swaziland shall be free to decide for themselves their own future;
- The right of all peoples of Africa to independence and self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close co-operation.
These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives. Until we have won our liberty.
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