Anthropological stories and insights from vrije universiteit amsterdam
By Duane Jethro The 24th of September marked Heritage Day in South Africa. Inaugurated in 1996, the state figured this public holiday would afford South Africans the opportunity to critically reflect on the post-apartheid nation’s rich cultural heritage and diversity. Responding to this implicit appeal, on the 24th of September 2005, the Mzansi Braai Institute initiated the idea of reframing Heritage Day as being a celebration of the braai, or barbeque.
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Maja Lovrenovi? Somewhere between Göreme and Nev?eher, the towns in the Cappadocia province of Central Turkey, in an underground restaurant carved into the famed regional volcanic sediments, a tightly seated crowd of tourists was awaiting for performers to appear on the stage area in the middle of a huge circular cave-like space. We had all been shuttled there in tourist buses, to enjoy raki, meze and the “whirling dervishes”. We had been told beforehand that the dance performance is not the actual trance-reaching Mevlevi ritual of sema, but in the same note nevertheless kindly asked not to take pictures until the lights are turned on at the end of the act. The dancers might get distracted by the camera flashes, it had been explained to us, as they need to concentrate on the whirling movement “just as the real dervishes used to do”.
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Duane Jethro Sunday 8 August, 2010: I am on an expedition to find an elusive Sunday Times memorial in Soweto, Johannesburg. On the way, I drive through Vilakazi Street, passing by Nelson Mandela’s former home. It has been transformed into a museum. The precinct surrounding his former domicile is teeming with tourists and a host of locals plying a range of different commercial strategies aimed at cashing in on the spoils of the heritage venture. Further along the way, I pass the monumental Hector Pieterson Memorial and Media Centre, another heritage project erected during the post-apartheid era dedicated to the memory of the first student to have died in the 1976 student uprisings. Soweto seems to be brimming with new, rich heritage ventures mapping the formerly hidden histories of its former residents. The memorial I am in search of is not very different, having been dedicated to another forgotten memorable moment in time.
I perform a radical driving manoeuvre having suddenly spotted the artwork. The wheels churn up a cloud of dust as I swerve into the open plot of ground opposite Morris Isaacson High School in Jabulani section.
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