Should historical sites be preserved and whose heritage do these sites represent?
These were the questions explored at a dialogue hosted by The Herald and Nelson Mandela University through their Community Dialogue series at the South End Museum on Thursday night.
While Andile Lungisa, ANC national executive committee member and Africa head of natural resources and subsoil heritage, feels strongly that heritage sites and cultural symbols of all communities must be protected because SA seeks to build on its richly diverse legacy, EFF regional chair Khanya Ngqisha said all colonial and apartheid symbols should be removed.
Their input followed calls from the Mandela Bay Heritage Trust for heritage to be celebrated as a way of bringing cultures together.
Addressing the theme “History, heritage and the preservation of historical sites in post-apartheid SA — is the continued funding of these projects justified?”, Lungisa sketched the arrival of different communities over the centuries in what is today SA.
He said this cultural and racial diversity was a historical fact and a central tenet of the way forward.
“We must teach future generations about our past. It is important.
“We will die together, we will bury each other. That is the SA the ANC is trying to promote.
“We will be making a mistake to do away with all these symbols.
“They are part of our own heritage.
“If we do away with them, they will disappear and we will not be able to interpret our heritage correctly,” Lungisa said.
He said much needed to be done to boost the presence of black African heritage and these symbols should be positioned centre stage.
“The symbols that must be dominant are the symbols of Africans, and these must be promoted.
“But as far as funding is concerned, civil society needs to help government to defend all our heritage sites.”
Speaking earlier, Mandela Bay Heritage Trust chair Lyn Haller said heritage was valuable in many ways and heritage protection should continue to be funded.
Haller, who is also a tourism guide, said heritage and culture were intertwined in tangible and intangible forms and manifest in everything from buildings and statues to events and stories passed down by elders by word of mouth.
“Heritage is important to create a sense of belonging, an understanding of the past and a vision for the future.
“Heritage sites offer education opportunities.
“They allow us to learn from our ancestors.
“Heritage supports tourism and our economy and if we protected it better it could offer far more in this regard.
“It benefits the hospitality sector and supports all communities by creating jobs.”
She said protecting heritage also meant protecting fragile ecosystems and biodiversity which supported human development.
“Heritage allows us to appreciate the richness of our history and to connect to our roots.
“Most of all it brings cultures together and promotes tolerance and respect.
“So it is essential for society as a whole and continued funding is definitely justified.”
Ngqisha disagreed, saying Africa had been violently colonised and with this history in mind, all colonial symbols should be removed.
Referring to the pyramid on The Donkin, built in 1861 by governor Sir Rufane Donkin in honour of his ailing wife, Ngqisha said it was unacceptable considering what was going on at the time.
“When he built that, our people were being oppressed.”
He said the Horse Memorial on Cape Road, built in memory of the horses that served and died during the Second Boer War, was equally beyond the pale.
“It reminds us of animals that got sick while many of our ancestors lived under a vicious system.
“This heritage reminds us of that pain.
“We cannot have The Donkin, the horse memorial, the name Port Elizabeth and other examples like that.
“We want to be free.
“These must all be removed and stored away and other heritage relevant to us must be built.”
Ngqisha said land, as the ultimate heritage of black South Africans, must be seized from those who had stolen it and given to the state.
NMU SRC transformation officer Luzuko Mbumbulwana said the dialogue was a critical one as heritage represented the wealth of a community.
He said, however, that the formation of SA under successive British and then Dutch and Afrikaner governance had created a skewed template for heritage.
“It was based on a British-Boere nationalism and this has not shifted even now.
“Heritage sites largely tell of that brutal oppression.
“Except for a few exceptions, the history and norms of black people are still not reflected.
“Also problematic is that the criteria for a heritage site is not close to the lived reality of SA’s black people.”
He said while he understood the call to use heritage as a tool for social cohesion, many of the current symbols made him feel alienated.
“As black people, we feel impoverished in the place we should feel at home.
“So we need a reconceptualisation of our post-apartheid South African identify.
“And the history and culture of the majority, which is black people, needs to be on display,” Mbumbulwana said.
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