Culture, Heritage and Liberation...

The following article is the best piece that I ever read when it comes to culture, heritage and tradition. It is derived from the South African Airways IN – Flight Magazine which is called Sawubona, September 2012. It is of course based on the reality of South Africa, the history of the ANC and refers to the existing structures and institutions in the country:


“Quite often in South Africa when someone defends something questionable, claiming that it is his or her culture, the stubborn little fact that refutes that claim is that that person would be talking about tradition or custom. Tradition and custom are not culture; they are petrified aspects of what at some point might have been cultural. It is what some cling to because it saves thought and often protects patriarchal privilege.

On the other hand, culture is dynamic; it is always in motion, always developing as a result of human action and interaction; it does not tolerate stasis. Culture is the sum total of what is produced by a people´s creative genius; this creativity is collective. Every society has a culture, at times several cultures. Some cultures are exploitative and others are not. All cultures have a material base.

Art and education are expressive of a people´s values and, therefore, of their culture. It must be pointed out though, for the sake of clarity, that tradition and, along with it custom, is static, but does serve a purpose in the development of culture. No one creates from nothing. For instance, in the creation of the arts, as in the production of anything else, it is what has been created or produced in the past that informs, influences, guides, and inspires the development of the new. No new development just happens accidentally.

Heritage is what is preserved from the past as the living collective memory of a people not only to inform the present about the past, but also to equip successive generations to fashion their future. It is what creates a sense of identity and reassures rootedness and continuity, so that what is brought about by the dynamism of culture is not change for its own sake, it is a result of people´s conscious choice to create a better life.

The birth of a liberation movement, then, is a conscious cultural choice. A liberation movement, to summarize Amilcar Cabral, is an organized political expression of the culture of oppression and exploitation.

As we celebrate the centenary of the ANC I think it is important to note that the founding President General and the Secretary General of our liberation movement were both cultural icons. President John Langalibalele Dube was an essayist, philosopher, educator, publisher, editor, novelist and poet. The ANC´s first Secretary General, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, was an outstanding intellectual, a journalist, linguist, translator, orator, teacher, editor. Their vision is an integral part of the history and heritage we celebrate as we cast our eyes forward to the future we must create.

Everything in society results from human activity, interaction and interests. This applies as much to the creation of art as it does to mobilizing workers against exploitation or creating mechanisms to manage social transformation. It therefore follows logically that what happens in life and social consciousness finds expression in artistic creativity. That should also explain why there has never been a shortage of writers and other artists in the ANC since its formation. In clarifying the relationship between literature and life, the late Alex la Guma, who was a prominent, internationally acclaimed writer and a leading cadre of the liberation movement, says:

“When I write in a book that somewhere in South Africa poor people who have no water must buy it by the bucketful from some local exploiter, and then I also entertain the secret hope that when somebody reads it he will be moved to do something about those robbers who have turned my country into a material and cultural wasteland for the majority of the inhabitants”.

What we glean from La Guma´s statement is that literature is a site of struggle; it must serve the interests of the people in the quest of their lives, which is fulfillment. When there are stumbling blocks to this fulfillment, which is a crucial aspect of liberation, there can be no peace because the majority of the people will experience misery, suffering and despair.

As we celebrate this centenary we must also be determined to strengthen the democratic cornerstones on which our economic, political and cultural well-being must stand as part of the heritage that the young will use to create a better life as they soar into the future”.