Time to change our behavior and action: heritage lesson!

Sibusiso Banda

The term “heritage” is associated with many descriptions. Desmond Tutu coined the phrase "rainbow nation" to describe South Africa's diverse cultures, customs, languages, histories, and inherited traditions. World dictionaries the word as something " that 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."
For us South Africans, it’s associated with 24 of September. Heritage Day, the day which we recognize and celebrate significant aspects of South African culture such as creative artistic expression ,languages, traditions and our historical inheritance including the type of food we eat and well as the land in which we live which we live in.

Given our unique diversity and inherence it’s not surprising that we recognized as the leading country that is compliant with and by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s universal selection criteria of recognition and protection of areas of natural, historical and cultural value. According to Africapedia we are ranked number 21 as “having spectacular natural resources and wildlife” with 8 World Heritage Sites such as Fossil Hominid Sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai, and Environs, Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, Robben Island, Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape , just to mention a few.

We are a country that is rich in heritage but it saddens me to come into term that we south Africans hardly visit these world recognized place, I’m not sure whether is because of our overseas sits as holiday preference or maybe we don’t know longer see or values the significant of these sits. There is a saying that goes as “we don’t know what we have until it’s gone”, and frankly given the current escalating rhino poaching problem, from my side it seems as if we are not heading there with our eyes opened but brains intoxicated to even seek what’s happening.

Various debates over the years have taken place in the media public sphere over whether we area shamed of our culture or whether our cultural the preached cultural teaching are being practiced. Recently I heard on a local radio station the debated on whether the meaning of heritage day is gradually being taken over by the associated “National braii day”, which seem rapidly professed over the years.

It’s high time we started changing our attitudes on heritage because if we don’t teach or pass on the knowledge of taking care and the value of practicing our culture we run a huge risk of depriving future generations the opportunity of experiencing what we have today.