RAINBOW HERITAGE


Red.  Orange.  Yellow.  Green.  Blue.  Indigo.  Violet.    The colours of the rainbow.  Today we celebrate Heritage Day in my beloved rainbow nation of sunny South Africa and I would like to share my reflection on this particular holiday.  I really enjoy the idea of using the bright colours of the rainbow as an analogy to describe the diversity of our beautiful nation.  In simple terms, bright rainbow colours are formed when sunlight is refracted through water droplets or even artificial light through a prism.  However, when the colour white is added to rainbow colours, it distorts the original colours and diminishes its brightness, red becomes pink and the other colours become pastel colours.


South African heritage refer to a comprehensive set of elements (such as knowledge, tradition, language, culture, artifacts, monuments, values and identity) left as a legacy from previous generations representing every people group in our nation.  It is indeed important to celebrate the beauty of rich legacy, but on a collective and united level, we should also review and revise the elements and revert the tainted ones back to the original in order to preserve only that which edifies all people for the generations to come after us.  Not everything which has been passed down to us as legacy by previous generations deserve to be passed on to the next generations.  If the beautiful, bright rainbow colours are our South African legacy, then as preservation prisms, it is the responsibility of our generation to ensure that we refract the incoming sunlight into pure rainbow colours for the next generations.


I am an English-speaking Afrikaner woman who loves authentic Durban-style curry as much as pap & braaivleis.  I have never made koeksusters, melktert or boerbeskuit, but I do enjoy eating it.  I prefer biltong and samoosas over carrot and celery sticks and I taught my English-speaking children to respectfully address older Afrikaner people as tannie or oom.  I have only recently been reconciled with the bright rainbow colours of my Afrikaner heritage.  The bright rainbow colours of forgiveness, consideration, inclusion, repentance, wit, leadership, wisdom, faith and tenacity and not the pink and pastels of indifference, pride, hatred, selfishness, deceit, self righteousness, self pity, indignation and entitlement.


Exactly one week from today is the first day of October, internationally recognised as Domestic Violence Awareness month, with the colour purple (violet, the rainbow colour, not lilac, the pastel) assigned to it as symbolic gesture.  Sadly, our rainbow nation ranks amongst the world’s top culprits in the area of violence, including domestic violence and it extends across all of our people groups.  So yes, today we can certainly celebrate the beautiful, bright parts of our heritage, the sun & snow, the wild & wacky, the cheers and champions, the biltong & boerewors, (Tatjana) Smith & the Springboks.  But tomorrow we have to face the pinks and pastels of the forced white-washed rainbow colours of the victims of violence in our own families and communities.  We owe it to them and the next generations.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (purple) NOT pink and pastels. 

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