---
title: "Reimagining SA’s true heritage somewhere over the rainbow beyond roots, rituals, myths, fairy tales"
description: "Today South Africans should acknowledge that all fairy tales come to an end and a more realistic and factual origin story has begun to write itself."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "HERITAGE DAY"
author: "Marianne Thamm"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/mariannethamm/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-24-reimagining-sas-true-heritage-somewhere-over-the-rainbow-beyond-roots-rituals-myths-fairy-tales/"
published: "2026-09-24T11:06:03"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 2930
---

# Reimagining SA’s true heritage somewhere over the rainbow beyond roots, rituals, myths, fairy tales

> Today South Africans should acknowledge that all fairy tales come to an end and a more realistic and factual origin story has begun to write itself.

By Marianne Thamm · Published 24 September 2026, 13:06 SAST

## Key points
- “Rainbow nation” may be fading, but South Africa’s more complex, honest origin story is taking shape.
- From the Madlanga Commission to a diverse GNU, the country remains fractious — yet capable of remarkable collective solidarity.
- Renamed streets, restored homes, returned artefacts and contested statues are reshaping whose history is remembered.
- Heritage lives beyond monuments: in languages, landscapes, faith, music and a gloriously hybrid food culture — from Cape Malay cuisine to shisanyama.

## Content

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Dorothy says when she arrives in the magical land in the 1939 Hollywood film The Wizard of Oz.

The scene applies to the term “rainbow nation” for South Africa, which may have served a vital existential purpose 30 years ago at the dawn of democracy, uniting a fiercely divided country, but in 2026 it seems quaint, a tad fairy tale and naive.

The term “rainbow nation” was dreamed up lovingly by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as warring parties held swords to each other’s throats while tiptoeing towards a promised peaceful, democratic future in 1994.

![ThammANCvsANC](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/1K6ECLSOgN9FNHGg9cmqOAYC7mo=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Jen-Siljan-Portait-Solo-by-Gabriel-Nyberg-1.jpg)

*Archbishop Desmond Tutu on 6 May 2010. (Photo: Gallo Images / The Times / Shelley Christians)*

In that future, as Steve Biko envisioned it before he was violently murdered in 1977, there shall be no majority and no minority. There shall just be people and they will all enjoy the same status before the law.

And here we are.

Behold the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, which has suddenly caught up with crime and criminal syndicates in a startlingly deep cleansing of law enforcement agencies, the criminal justice system, taxi industry, political principals and businesses who tagged along for the ride.

If you want to witness a nation collectively united and of a mind, read the rolling comments section during the live broadcasts of the commission and court cases that have arisen from it. It is the equivalent of a stadium singing the national anthem before a Springbok rugby match.

And while the rest of the so-called Western world moves away from multiculturalism and notions of the melting pot, South Africans have managed to live comfortably with versions of “Nationalism lite” and still feel at home. This is precisely because of our nation’s fractious heritage.

![Siya Kolisi](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/M2k9nxto21kVnP_8tN4JMbDothk=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage50_453375.jpg)

*Siya Kolisi of South Africa scores a try during the Castle Double Malt Rugby's Greatest Rivalry 2nd Test match between South Africa and New Zealand at DHL Stadium on 29 August 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Ashley Vlotman / Gallo Images)*

### The state of a nation

This Heritage Month, we should acknowledge that all fairy tales come to an end and a more realistic and factual origin story has begun to write itself.

The spillover from the US, UK and Europe and the political symbiosis between AfriForum, which claims to represent Afrikaner interests, and the March and March movement, led by the xenophobic Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, is evidence of this.

![oped-walker-Afriforum](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/3ZQfgvtAOOvFNF1JSMXwEDmiCbI=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Dekfoto_738738.jpg)

*AfriForum’s CEO, Kallie Kriel and March and March founder Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma. (Photo: AfriForum)*

These populists are the spawn of global right-wing anti-migrant movements in a post-ideological age. They have leaders who scapegoat rather than face correcting the traumatic causes of refugee migration, such as war and the devastating impacts of government incompetence and corruption.

South Africa at present has a version of a Government of National Unity representing every form and shape of political affiliation. We speak 11 languages, 12 including our sign language, and rank as one of the most politically interesting countries in the world.

Heritage Month is generally celebrated around South Africa with displays of traditional clothing worn to school or places of work and, on the public holiday itself, the collective charring of meat known as the braai.

![The ‘lieslap’ being crisped on the braai. (Photo: Tony Jackman)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/EPK6OVfS5xeQygzrWytpmV9F2LA=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/lieslam.jpg)

*Lamb ‘lieslap’ being crisped on the braai. (Photo: Tony Jackman)*

We didn’t get here without actively seeking to collect the bones and restore dignity and recognition to communities, individuals and events that have shaped the country’s painful heritage and history.

Two significant events in 2025 – the repatriation and reburial in South Africa of Khoi and San remains from Scotland, and the return from Switzerland of three sacred cultural artefacts to the Nkuna royal family – matter greatly. Truth, respect and acknowledgment of wrongdoing preserve the past and serve as a foundation for a future.

One of the key institutions tasked with preserving this history and heritage is the South African Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra). It received about R74-million from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture’s allocated R2.912-billion in 2026/27 for what is known as Programme 4, which has the aim of protecting and promoting national heritage. However, Sahra’s work stretches beyond buildings and memorials as the custodian of a contested past.

No more myths or fairy tales.

![The first Andries Botha version of King Shaka's statue. (Image source: Andries Botha)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/p4yZhNuqvGPW6caSpSJVfVm6Jfs=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Poor-King-Shaka-03.jpg)

*The Andries Botha version of King Shaka’s statue. (Image source: Andries Botha)*

### Then and now

Before 1995, 24 September was celebrated as Shaka Day in KwaZulu-Natal, honouring the legendary warrior king who united the Zulu nation. It is the day he was buried in 1828 in KwaDukuza. He was 41 years old.

Today the Zulu royal household leaks as much as Buckingham Palace and occasionally gives King Charles’s household more than a run for headline sensation.

A four-minute leaked clip of King Misuzulu kaZwelithini holding what appears to be a beer bottle while arguing with Queen Nomzamo Myeni and slagging off the Shembe Church went viral on that great leveller, social media, in July. The king’s office immediately issued a statement apologising for his behaviour. Case closed. Heritage is only human.

![Voortrekker Monument](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/JEbNp_cCmSG6C4ILYxJyFoQ_HXA=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage37_951941.jpg)

*The Voortrekker Monument on 30 November, 2025 in Pretoria, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Alet Pretorius)*

When heritage is not busy being human, it is often inserting itself into everyday life. Anyone who grew up in Pretoria pre-democracy will have an internal map of the city streets marked by Afrikaner heroes: Paul Kruger, Hendrik Verwoerd, Hans Strijdom, Andries Pretorius. Then there were Voortrekker and Church streets, like almost everywhere in South Africans cities and towns.

In this way, the heritage and history of the Voortrekkers settled unchallenged over the capital city and its black and white inhabitants for 145 years.

Ironically, on 31 May 2001, on what was once Republic Day, a giant bronze head of Prime Minister JG Strijdom on a plinth in Strijdom Square in central Pretoria – unveiled with great fanfare on 31 May 1972 – plummeted through the plaza and into an underground basement. The looming Nationalist politician who believed in white minority rule was thus removed from public view and consciousness.

A construction flaw, they said. A bit like apartheid, never designed to last. The place is now called Lilian Ngoyi Square.

![Church Square Pretoria](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/vRnZnlRLGimRJsJ8G3dSJzY_i24=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage36_469793.jpg)

*The statue of Paul Kruger still presides over Church Square in Pretoria. (Photo: Gallo Images / Beeld / Deaan Vivier)*

However, a visitor to Pretoria today will still find Church Square with Oom Paul in his top hat staring sternly north, beautifully renovated, along with some of the city’s earliest buildings of pink-orange sandstone, scrubbed clean.

The pigeons have remained as steadfast in targeting Kruger as they have done since he was put there in 1954. Now and again, the EFF or other groupings chuck paint at it.

The original post office with its Belle Époque interior and brass counter is an experience in itself, housing the Post Office Museum. You can buy stamps commemorating past and current contemporary figures – proof that letter writers must exist.

### Map app tongue-twisters

Today the streets of Pretoria, the administrative and executive capital of South Africa, reveal a new geography, history and heritage. A colossal statue of an open-armed Nelson Mandela stands at the steps of the seat of government, the grand Herbert Baker-designed Union Buildings.

It matters because instructions for the implementation of apartheid and segregation were thought up and issued from this very building.

In 2012, Church Street was sliced up into quarters to honour Elias Motsoaledi (trade unionist and Rivonia Triallist), Dr WF Nkomo (pioneering medical doctor and political activist), Helen Joseph (prominent activist and one of the leaders of the 1956 Women’s March on the Union Buildings) and Stanza Bopape (student activist and the first general secretary of the South African National Civic Organisation from Mamelodi).

> **Monuments to women**
>
> In the old days, women were seldom celebrated individually but more for their role beside “the men” who made history. For example, the Afrikaner mother and her two children at the foot of the Voortrekker Monument.
>
> On 27 October 1926, feminist, human rights activist Emily Hobhouse died in London alone and penniless. Her remains were shipped back to South Africa and interred at the Vrouemonument (Women’s Monument) in Bloemfontein. While she was claimed as a “Boer” heroine, Hobhouse was much more than that.
>
> ![Emily Hobhouse](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/mBDGpftHXDeZKdA9HRL3QgosYwI=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Tamsin-Hobhouse-funeral2_865339.jpg)
>
> *Emily Hobhouse, British pacifist, humanitarian and feminist, at the age of 34. (Photo: Supplied/The Story of Emily Collection)*
>
> This year the funeral of Hobhouse, a Boer War “whistleblower” who exposed British cruelty in South Africa will be recreated in Bloemfontein on 31 October. Hundreds are expected to gather in her honour.
>
> In July 2010 the grave of teacher, trade unionist, activist and Treason Trialist Helen Joseph, was declared a National Heritage Site. Joseph was one of a handful of white South Africans who stood up to injustice.
>
> It was during her service as national secretary of the Federation of South African Women, that she met and befriended Lilian Ngoyi, a towering figure in South African politics who has had several streets, public squares and institutions named after her.
>
> Together with Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, these women led the march of 20,000 women to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956. Joseph was hounded and banned and refused to go into exile.
>
> Moosa’s grave in Newclare Cemetery Johannesburg was declared a national heritage site in 2012.

![From left: Rahima Moosa, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Sophia Williams led the 1956 Women’s March to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, carrying stacks of petitions to present to the government. (Photo: Jürgen Schadeberg)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/6I6OaHJP1ZCGK2_yBGq2Vw8h0H8=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/27-leaders-courtesy-of-sahistory-website-1.jpg)

*Rahima Moosa, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Sophia Williams led the 1956 Women’s March to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, carrying stacks of petitions to present to the government. (Photo: Jürgen Schadeberg)*

Many who drive on these roads may not know after whom they are named, but that these South Africans have been given a place is meaningful.

The pride of the former government’s segregated public hospitals in Pretoria, the HF Verwoerd Hospital, is now the Steve Biko Academic Hospital. The leader of the black consciousness movement spent six years studying medicine from 1966 to 1972 at the then University of Natal before devoting his life to the anti-apartheid struggle.

![The Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria. (Photo: Wikipedia)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/h4jlPlbUfe4GVs5URyxQZ1nl6hs=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/orateng-cancer-1.jpg)

*Steve Biko Academic Hospital.*

Biko died in Pretoria in 1977 after being transported from Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha, to the city, naked in the back of a police van. He had been heavily beaten by security police during interrogation. The hospital now stands as a painful reminder.

In District Six, Cape Town, razed to make way for a whites-only suburb, many beloved streets were erased but remain alive in songs, poems and the District Six Museum on the fringe of the City Bowl.

Hanover, Horstley and Tennant streets are not forgotten. Like the dogs and pigeons who kept returning to District Six after the suburb had been reduced to rubble, the ghosts remain.

![Winnie Mandela house](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/KlFmfaWhzS2ssFVVKRIDMAILVA0=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage51_967840.jpg)

*The Brandfort house to which Winnie Mandela was banished between 1974 and 1985 has been renovated. (Photo: Marianne Thamm)*

For years before her death in 2018, the house that Winnie Mandela was banished to in Brandfort in Free State between 1974 and 1985 lay neglected and forgotten. House Number 802 in Majwemasweu township was rescued, restored and unveiled in December 2022. It is said to feature a treasure trove of photographs and other memorabilia relating to the life of one of the most significant female leaders this country has ever witnessed on display.

Winnie Mandela Drive in Johannesburg is wiping out the memory of William Nicol, Brandfort has been renamed after her, and across the country her name is the home address of many who live in townships.

### Side by side

![The Constitutional Court](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/CXDNTeI6vI_3IP0QdaPxoWou5lM=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage38_387038.jpg)

*The Constitutional Court in Johannesburg. (Photo: Nicolene Olckers / Foto24 / Gallo Images)*

New museums and heritage sites with memorials and commemorative plaques have been created all over South Africa since 1994. The Constitutional Hill precinct, Hector Pietersen Museum, Albert Luthuli’s house in Groutville and Nelson Mandela’s house in Soweto are all vital public manifestations of our history.

There are bronzes of the likes of Biko and Solomon Mahlangu and group memorials to the Cradock Four. All around, new generations are absorbing the past in more than just the ­history books, which skim the surface like a pebble.

Although the bronze statue of British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, seated and pondering, was removed from the University of Cape Town’s premises during the Fees Must Fall protests in 2015, a continuing battle rages on the slopes of Table Mountain around the corner. A bronze bust of the mining magnate in a cove above the steps of the imposing Rhodes Memorial, with its huge lions overlooking the city, has been repeatedly vandalised over the years.

The bust has often been daubed with red paint and then, in 2015, someone cut off its nose with an angle grinder. In 2020, Rhodes’s head was toppled entirely and rolled down the hill.

![The Castle of Good Hope](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/Lh9xRh7Tx2lHTXbtpNtTx04XHMo=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage42_557322.jpg)

*The Castle of Good Hope. (Photo: iStock)*

> **World Heritage Sites**
>
> South Africa has a whopping 12 Unesco World Heritage Sites – enough to keep you busy for decades.
> 1. Robben Island in Cape Town, Western Cape; 
> 2. The Cape Floral Region stretching across Western Cape and Eastern Cape; 
> 3. The Cradle of Humankind (including the Sterkfontein Caves) in Gauteng; 
> 4. The Vredefort Dome in Free State; 
> 5. The Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park in KwaZulu-Natal; 
> 6. iSimangaliso Wetland Park, also in KwaZulu-Natal; 
> 7. Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape in Limpopo; 
> 8. The Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape in Northern Cape; 
> 9. The Khomani Cultural Landscape in the southern Kalahari; 
> 10. The Barberton Makhonjwa Mountain Land in Mpumalanga; 
> 11. Human Rights, Liberation and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites (there are 14 locations, 11 of which are in Johannesburg and Pretoria, two in Eastern Cape and one each in Free State and KwaZulu-Natal; and 
> 12. The Pleistocene Occupation Sites in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

[The Friends of Rhodes Memorial](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-07-15-the-day-cecil-john-rhodes-lost-his-head/?dm_source=blocks-horizontal&dm_medium=card-link&dm_campaign=inform&dm_position=2&_gl=1*f3o3c8*_up*MQ..*_ga*NjgzNTEyNDEwLjE3OTAxOTAyMTc.*_ga_Y7XD5FHQVG*czE3OTAxOTM4NjUkbzIkZzEkdDE3OTAxOTQwMTckajYwJGwwJGgyMDcyMjk4Mzc4JGRzbktKNXgxRWlkWWZKYVJfd1BtR3Q1Sk43c1NDNXBlOFpB) stepped in, made a new cast and 3D model of the original head and affixed a new one to the plinth. Now there are spare Rhodes heads hidden somewhere should he face future attacks. A future-proof Rhodes.

Oliver Tambo’s son Dali has been a key figure driving the Long March to Freedom exhibition of 100 historical figures striding into a liberated future. It was first installed in Pretoria and is now located on a strip of land between Century City and the N1 in Cape Town. All the figures appear to be facing north – thus striding out of Cape Town as properties become unaffordable.

Tambo is celebrated, of course, at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg and, more recently, on Durban’s beachfront. A new statue of Mandela was also erected outside the Moses Mabhida Stadium. [The two statues cost Durban](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-01-11-wrapped-in-controversy-ethekwini-mayor-mayor-defends-r22m-statues-amid-service/?dm_source=blocks-horizontal&dm_medium=card-link&dm_campaign=inform&dm_position=3&_gl=1*1xwq58*_up*MQ..*_ga*NjgzNTEyNDEwLjE3OTAxOTAyMTc.*_ga_Y7XD5FHQVG*czE3OTAxOTM4NjUkbzIkZzAkdDE3OTAxOTM4NjUkajYwJGwwJGgyMDcyMjk4Mzc4JGRzbktKNXgxRWlkWWZKYVJfd1BtR3Q1Sk43c1NDNXBlOFpB) about R11-million each.

Whereas the old statues that remain in South Africa often depict stern and steadfast leaders, Tambo and Mandela are like two old uncles welcoming you to a wedding.

### Glorious food and wine

In August, celebrated author, chef and cultural ambassador [Kashiefa “Cass” Abrahams](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-08-12-cass-abrahams-pioneering-voice-of-cape-malay-cuisine-dies-at-82/?dm_source=blocks-horizontal&dm_medium=card-link&dm_campaign=inform&dm_position=1&_gl=1*u0tvli*_up*MQ..*_ga*OTgyMzkzMTEwLjE3OTAxODM1MDE.*_ga_Y7XD5FHQVG*czE3OTAxOTM4MDAkbzIkZzAkdDE3OTAxOTM4MDAkajYwJGwwJGgzMDU1NzExMSRkb0dSZlJZd0YwMlRSSl9xNDkxY1hWbW1DajVValNkV2h6QQ..) died at the age of 82, but not without leaving a legacy of recording and teaching traditional Cape Malay cuisine.

Abrahams was an early populariser and pioneer of heritage staples in a city where European cuisine and Western fast food competes with the traditional. She and those who followed in her footsteps have opened new worlds for palates around the globe.

The Cape has always prided itself on its wines, which are globally enjoyed. It is a heritage that arrived with Jan van Riebeeck, who planted the first vineyards for the Dutch East India Company in the 1650s. When the French Huguenots arrived three decades later, fleeing persecution in France and settling in what is now Franschhoek, winemaking got better. Today, these wines are enjoyed by the Zulu royal household.

Durban cuisine, too, has established itself as a national favourite. Recipes arrived first with Indian migrants brought to Natal to work on sugar-cane farms and morphed into a South African version. Indian and Asian cuisines dominate cities today: the former tops the menu in the UK, where a good curry is viewed as a “national dish”. That is heritage in motion.

![Traditional durban mutton bunny chow](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/QmHy9gJitoJU11cy24dsYzISBM4=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage40_342817.jpg)

*A traditional Durban mutton bunny chow, or kota. (Photo: iStock)*

![Gatsby sandwiches  are part of our heritage](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/eyC0JQN34y72lGhiGRcZrRE5WcI=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Thammheritage39_111772.jpg)

*The Gatsby, a Western Cape delicacy. (Photo: iStock)*

South Africa’s culinary traditions offer an astounding range of nourishment, from the French, Dutch and the blander English to traditional African delicacies like “walkie talkies” (chicken feet and heads), tripe, chicken feet, Gatsbys and kotas. Samp and beans, alongside some stiff mieliepap with morogo (wild spinach), is a comfort food of choice for many in Gauteng.

And then there is the meat. South Africans are incorrigible meat eaters, getting their fill from the township-originated shisanyama to the tjops and wors braai we are smelling on Heritage Day.

> **Things you’d miss**
>
> Mrs Ball’s chutney, biltong, Marmite, mebos, Ouma rusks, green cream soda, Nik Naks, milk tart, samosas, koeksisters, koesisters, Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs, the Springboks, Tannie Evita, bobotie, Esther Mahlangu’s art, the Karoo, Joburg’s afternoon thunder showers.

So what is heritage? It is that which surrounds us and comes to settle within. It is those things you long for back home when you leave. It’s the smells and sights and sound of the landscape that shaped your sense of place in the world.

The food, the languages, music, costumes, dances, the modes of worship, the sound of church bells or the muezzin’s call to prayer. Heritage is about the mountains, the sea, the deserts and forest and the values and traditions that define a society.

Heritage is the scaffolding and sediment of ordinary lives that provide a shared sense of origin, history and destiny. As the song goes, we are truly “somewhere over the rainbow”. **DM**

*This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R39.*