Happy Heritage Day

What has made you proudly South African recently? (And if you're not South African, what are you proud of in your own country?)

For me, it was the Black Ferns visit to play the Springbok Women's team in September. And yes, the Black Ferns thrashed us, but that felt entirely besides the point. What I loved about the Black Ferns visit was how proud they made me feel to be South African. Every social media post I saw about their visit involved singing, either us singing to them or them singing to us. The Black Ferns even sang thank you to the hotel staff where they stayed for their visit, and the hotel staff sang right back to them!

The visit was marked by comraderie, laughter and getting to know one another and South Africa beyond the game of rugby. The teams were brought together by the history they were making.

This year's theme of Heritage Month is Celebrating our Living Heritage: Strengthening the Ties that Bind us. From the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture page comes this quote:

The 2026 theme foregrounds living heritage as a dynamic, people-centred expression of identity, memory, continuity, and social belonging. It recognises that heritage is not static, nor confined to monuments, museums, archives, or heritage sites, but is actively practised and transmitted through language, music, dance, rituals, oral traditions, indigenous knowledge systems, craftsmanship, belief systems, customary practices, and other cultural expressions that continue to shape the everyday lives of communities across South Africa.

And, when we can share who we are with visitors and help them feel belonging here too, this is truly special.

Even as I reflect on this, I think back on this year's deeply disturbing and harmful xenophobic attacks, hate speech and marches. It seems incongruent with who we really are as South Africans.

May the world see and remember us for being open, welcoming and inclusive. And may devisiveness voices be silenced.