The official opposition party in South Africa, the Umkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), has slammed the celebration of Heritage Day as a “hollow spectacle” meant to distort historical facts.
According to the MKP, this day, which was originally recognized as King Shaka Day among native people, has lost its revolutionary character after being reduced to a meaningless “Braai Day” by yesteryear’s oppressors.
The Jacob Zuma-led two-year-old party says the transformation of this day from what it originally was is deliberate to summersault the lived realities of the majority of people of the land who continue to live in squalor.
Day stripped of its significance
“The uMkhonto weSizwe Party rejects the hollow spectacle that is now called ‘Heritage Day’. What was once King Shaka Day, a solemn and powerful moment of remembrance for Black unity, leadership, and resistance, has been reduced to a depoliticised celebration of ‘Braai Day,’ stripped of its revolutionary significance and emptied of its historical truth.
“We refuse to celebrate in a country where the vast majority of Black South Africans remain dispossessed, landless, and excluded from the economy. This day, dressed up in the language of diversity and national pride, only serves to mask the deep-rooted injustices that continue to define post-apartheid South Africa,” said the party in a statement released on Heritage Day.
“Our struggle is deeply rooted in the footsteps of our African kings, chiefs, and forebearers who resisted colonial conquest with courage and vision. The legacy of that resistance lives on, not in song and dance, but in the demand for the return of land, the restoration of dignity and the realisation of full and total liberation.
“The ongoing economic apartheid where land and wealth remain in the hands of a privileged few cannot be glossed over by performative displays of culture.”
The MKP believes that this public holiday in its current form is a strategic manoeuvre by the former colonisers to rewrite the real heritage of the native people of the land.
Attempt to erase Shaka legacy
This day, which remained Heritage Day even when Zuma was head of state with executive powers to make changes but did not, said MKP, was an attempt to erase King Shaka’s legacy in favour of a sanitised public holiday that insults the memory of African ancestors.
“We call on the masses of our people to use this day not to celebrate. But to organise, to remember, and to resist. The revolution is far from over. The land has not been returned, and economic justice remains a dream deferred.
“The MK Party will not be pacified by meaningless holidays that erase our history and spit in the faces of ancestors. Let the so-called Heritage Day be a reminder of the unfinished business of our revolution.”
