Celebrating unity in diversity on Heritage Day

Nelson Mandela University’s new Arts, Culture and Heritage Deputy Director Giselle Baillie shares her thoughts on what Heritage Month may mean to staff and students

It is a platform where we are encouraged to celebrate the diversity of all citizens who make up the nation through the range of socio-cultural imaginaries and practices each language group celebrates.

It also calls on us to understand and honour the contributions that this diversity makes to the democratic nation we imagine, desire and build.

But, what does this mean for those of us who work or study at Nelson Mandela University?

For many of us, the broader meaning of Heritage Day may have been lost owing to the different identities and meanings that the day has taken on over the past several years, many of which seem easier to manage.

Perhaps this has also resulted in our loss of understanding as to why this day was promoted to foreground a key concept of our democracy, being that of our valuing of unity in diversity, across the best of times, and the worst of times.

In this instance, we may need to step back and re-think the purpose of the day, and what insight and guidance our University could provide. When distilled to its essence, universities are tasked with the search for truth and understanding, through research, ideas, developments, contexts and situations which can be  messy, complicated and complex.

As the man after whom Nelson Mandela University is named showed, it is through this kind of search in the worst of times that we also realise the significance of striving to reach the aspirational principles of our democracy: dignity, equality and freedoms for all.

These principles are also reflected in the names of numerous University buildings and open spaces, which have been deliberately chosen to honour individuals whose life journeys were similarly aspirational.

What then could the Nelson Mandela University’s symbolic heritage landscape play in our attitude towards Heritage Day?

In an academic article published in 2015, Mandela University Honorary Professor Crain Soudien emphasised the deep struggles Mandela had in moving beyond his sense of being in this world, into a broader, more open sense of being.  Soudien sought to understand the vision Mandela had developed for a future, democratic South Africa while he was imprisoned on Robben Island.

Mandela’s thinking, together with that of many others, would eventually shape our national motto, “Unity in Diversity”.

For Mandela, personally, getting to this point was not easy. He entered the island environment deeply rooted in a sense of cultural nationhood and encountered prisoners from different political ideologies, generations, languages and cultures.

They challenged him to listen, and to be open and engaged with views which diverged from his, and this contributed to his image of what a democratic South Africa could be.

This process of engagement and reflection was critical for his personhood development, as it was for his development for the world.  

It is perhaps also critical for us, today. If we feel that we have run out of the will to “celebrate” Heritage Day with each other because we fear it is inconsequential within our current context, what does this lead to?

A study by Professor Laurence Schlemmer in the 1970s focused on understanding the impact of  apartheid schooling and post-schooling language policies on the social understanding youths had of each other.

Not long ago schools and universities were based on one language, where admission was based on your home language and, by inference, your ethnicity.

Schlemmer found that most survey respondents indicated they knew little to nothing of those from language groups different to theirs.

What is more, this lack of knowledge was found to be acceptable, given the political context of the time.  How much of this shadow of acceptability thinking still looms over us today, even though we are now in a different socio-political era? Do we know of and understand each other enough to realise what role diversity plays in building the future we desire?

And, if not, might Heritage Month be a time when we can change this?

What Mandela and others exemplify is the need to consciously work to move beyond  our shadow of acceptability. This includes being willing to address  uncomfortable questions and states of being, from where we may grow as people and as a nation.

Nelson Mandela University strives to give expression to this spirit of truth seeking and understanding and has commemorated complex figures and ideas  whichexemplify this spirit through its ongoing naming and renaming process.

The name and idea of Mandela is the most obvious of these, but there are many others, such as:

• Lillian Ngoyi
• Pius Langa
• Johnny Clegg
• David Webster
• Fatima Meer
• Hector Pieterson
• Claude Qavane
• Dulcie September
• Katherine Johnson
• Denis Goldberg
• Athenkosi Mbangatha
• Charlotte Maxeke
• Sarah Baartman
• Sol Plaatje
• Yolanda Guma.

Look around when you walk on our campuses. Read these names and know why they have been chosen. They are drawn from all walks of life, with differing personal, cultural,  historical, religious and racial heritages.

Look around you when you walk through the corridor at work, or step into a lecture room, and notice how your colleagues and fellow students likewise are drawn from all walks of life. Each individual brings their heritage to campus, whether or not we understand or know their truth.

Perhaps each one of us might use Heritage Day as an opportunity to search for understanding and truth, to find “unity in diversity”.

As the Nelson Mandela University community, we stand on the shoulders of these figures who have worked for the betterment of society, no matter the context.

May their life examples, and that of Nelson Mandela, frame our engagements with others not only on Heritage Day but into the future as we strive to “change the world”.