September is Heritage Month

Not only is September Tourism Month, but this month is also devoted to her­it­age. Officially, it's an annual cel­eb­ra­tion of South African cul­ture, both tan­gible and intan­gible, so music and lan­guage has as much place on the agenda as his­tor­ical inher­it­ance or the food that we eat. Informally, it's a cel­eb­ra­tion of 'local is lek­ker', the quint­es­sen­tial exper­i­ence of just what makes South Africa so unique ...

Every year the gov­ern­ment decides on a theme for the month's cel­eb­ra­tion and this year's theme is  “cel­eb­rat­ing our crafts, our her­it­age”. And what a coun­try in which to cel­eb­rate an industry that has morphed from an expres­sion of cre­ativ­ity, to a form of entre­pren­eur­ship, with whole busi­nesses cre­ated around pro­du­cing crafts from nat­ural resources and recycled products.

South Africa has a rich his­tory of cul­tural expres­sion, defined par­tic­u­larly in its crafts. Through this cel­eb­ra­tion there is a greater pri­or­ity: that of 'build­ing cohes­ive and sus­tain­able com­munit­ies'. A nation is built by cel­eb­rat­ing com­mon national iden­tity and pride, and by show­cas­ing our museums, gal­ler­ies, her­it­age and other tour­ist attrac­tions that high­light the country's crafts, our her­it­age, and our culture.

The month builds up to the 19 September when the Heritage Awards hon­our six South Africans for their con­tri­bu­tion to the pre­ser­va­tion and pro­mo­tion of South African her­it­age and cul­ture at the ICC in Durban.

The awardees for this year have already been selec­ted: Alfred Nokwe (late) for theatre; Johnny Clegg — music and social cohe­sion; Noria Mabasa — an accom­plished sculptor and wood carver; Bheki Mseleku (late) for music; Nanda Soobben — Durban based anim­ator and arts edu­cator, and Jay Pather for dance .

The Heritage Awards are still rel­at­ively new. Launched only in 2006, they are annu­ally  awar­ded by the Heritage Council of South Africa. They're also unique as there are no other awards that spe­cific­ally award the her­it­age sec­tor else­where in the world, although there are awards that are sim­ilar, such as as the Nobel Foundations awards in medi­cine, chem­istry, lit­er­at­ure, phys­ics, eco­nom­ics and peace.

Look out for events around the country!

Useful Links:
Heritage Day 24 September
South Africa Events
South Africa Public Holidays