OUR HERITAGE
TOM EATON: Stand up and face the fire, it’s Braai Day
Being able to stand upright is not a condition of employment for members of parliament, mostly because that would need a spine
So, which one was it? Heritage or braai? Did you reflect on the series of accidents – noble, sordid and banal – that resulted in your extremely coincidental birth, or did you chew on a chop? Given the constraints of continental drift, you wouldn’t think people could be both balkanised and polarised. Yet somehow Heritage Day and its opportunistic little remora, Braai Day, manage to do both. The schism is complicated but seems to boil down to one’s appetite to reflect on history, or at least those stories, inherited from loved or respected storytellers, enshrined as history. Some South Africans want to do it. Others don’t. For the former, Heritage Day is a perfect opportunity. For the latter, there are chops. I understand the objections to Braai Day. I share some of them myself. I’m not suggesting that everyone who does Braai Day is in denial, but if I didn’t want to discuss certain basic historical realities, stuffing my mouth full of meat would be an excellent start. I disagree, how...
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