Braai Day? Perfect, but not on Heritage Day

The Braair4Heritage Foundation struck upon a pure gold idea when they conceived of the National Braai Day.

That much is certainly pretty obvious. Bribing traffic officers, cutting corners and reinforcing our own prejudices aside, burning slabs of meat on open flames while downing copious amounts of SAB’s finest is that other common trait we all share. From Pimville to Pofadder, Kimberly to KwaMashu, the weekend braai is a universal rite. I certainly get why they would have wanted to link it to Heritage Day, it’s part of our national identity, and if heritage does not derive from that then I don’t know what does.

My concerns about it stems from the fact that while celebrating a new and still developing heritage is good, we should not forget our history. The ANC is doing a good job of airbrushing history and “fixing” it in its own image, such that a future scholar of the apartheid years would think that any uprising or revolts against colonisers and the apartheid state were the fruit of ANC ideology and no other movement has any claim to it. And while the good folk at Braai4Heritage certainly do not share the nefarious (in this regard at least) intentions of our ruling party, I fear their initiative in its current form could at least exacerbate this.

We have September 24, a day which among the nation’s 12-million odd Zulus is symbolic for the assassination of the founder of one of the world’s greatest military empires, December 16, the Voortrekkers allied with Mpande won a great victory against the massed army of Dingane ka Senzangakhona. Those events were very important in shaping the future of our land and certainly influenced a lot of what came thereafter. They are also viewed by the descendants of the Zulu and Afrikaners as a very important part of their heritage.

In building a united heritage as a nation, we must acknowledge the need to understand and make peace with our past. And we need to celebrate our different identities in the knowledge that it is this very diversity which is our country’s greatest potential strength. Turning a day where we can learn and teach each other about our culture and history into one where we pretend that all is well runs some very dangerous risks. I would advocate for a recognised National Braai Day, and I’d have my name first on any petition for it. But not at the expense of a cause that is even more important.

Maybe we could celebrate the anniversary of the 2010 World Cup kick-off as Braai Day, maybe the first Tri-Nations Test each year, or Madiba’s birthday. But not one of the few of the opportunities we have to reflect and learn about our diversity, however well meaning the intentions.