Sport, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa this week called on South Africans to preserve their cultures and heritage by passing it on to their children.
Mthethwa was speaking at the official launch of Heritage month in Freedom Park in Pretoria. This year, Heritage month will be commemorated under the theme: “The year of Charlotte Maxeke: Celebrating SA’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.”
“Living legends and living human treasures are knowledge bearers that need to be transferred to the younger generation so that this knowledge is transferred from one generation to the next,” said Mthethwa.
The minister also urged South Africans to promote tolerance and use their diverse cultures to bridge the divisions created by the apartheid regime.
“The constitution enjoins all of us to employ the diversity of our heritage as a source of strength and unity. In keeping with the ideals of uTata Nelson Mandela, we look to the national days like Heritage Day as levers to bring about cohesion and national unity.
“It is an undisputed fact that colonialism and apartheid employed heritage and culture in a more subversive way.
“That is, apartheid and colonialism accentuated perceivable differences in terms of our culture and heritage as scientifically distinguishable markers that proved that as black people we were a hodgepodge of nations, totally distinct and unrelated to one another and as such, we shared no common heritage and culture,” said the minister.
