Article by INFIL // EXFIL on X
Heritage Day was designed as an act of inclusion. A democratic president’s job on 24 September is to make that inclusion audible to ALL people of our nation, their own recipes, and their own grandparents’ names.
Since
Cyril Ramaphosa turned his speech into an election campaign and can’t be a responsible leader…
allow me.
Shoutout to: English-speaking South Africans, Jewish South Africans, Portuguese, Greek and other smaller communities whose churches, schools and enterprises are also part of the record.
Coloured communities whose identities, music, language and political struggle sit at the intersection of many ancestries. Afrikaans as a language that grew on this soil, the literature, architecture and farming practices that came with it, and the fact that Afrikaner families also lost people in concentration camps and on commando.
The Indian communities who arrived as indentured labourers and built temples, mosques, spice routes and businesses that are now part of the national fabric. The languages and oral traditions of the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, Venda, Tsonga and other African nations.
AND THE KHOISAN – first peoples whose rock art and knowledge systems pre-date every later arrival. Let’s hope the next president doesn’t use Heritage Day to only talk about the legacy of destruction the ANC has left behind after Apartheid… a total compounding shit show.
Also, shout-out to everyone marching today in the streets who can’t afford to celebrate Heritage Day, because the only history they remember is that of State Capture.
