Lance fredericks My kamikaze brother

WE MUST have been about 10 and 12 years old respectively when my brother laid out his future plans. Look, he’s over 50 now, so I’m sure that he’s changed his mind; but before he was a teenager he wasn’t planning on getting old.

“When I hit 30, I’m buying myself a Honda CB 750 and taking it on the road; then when I see a cliff face, I am going to accelerate and crash into the rock face and I am going to die there,” he told me one day.

“Then I will be able to read the comics first,” was the first thought that flashed through my mind. I am not joking – we had an arrangement back then that he (being older) had the privilege of the first read.

To us, back then 30 was old, and anything above that was being dug up by palaeontologists. But when I look at the “old” folk today – like the one I see in the mirror every morning – they don’t seem that ancient; it’s not strange to have sprightly 80 and 90 year olds.

Nowadays we pat ourselves on the back saying that “we” have made advances in medicine and science and now people are living longer and healthier lives … but can “we” take credit for the vitality that the old folk are experiencing?

Think about it, these are the people who were born around the time of the Second World War and things were not easy back then … so I’ve read.

Then also consider that in our country these people experienced what our society was like preapartheid. So they know what South Africa was like before society was ripped apart.

After that they saw the end of apartheid and are the only ones who know South Africa pre-apartheid and post-apartheid … have you ever asked them how it compares?

But besides the social upheavals that they lived through and the hardships many of them endured, I was wondering what contributed to them still being strong, active and energetic, even at their advanced ages.

And then I realised that maybe, just perhaps it’s because these people had no gadgets or devices; they lived life hands-on.

A friend said the other day that we are currently in a time where we can’t even remember how we lived without Google, and apps, and online videos to help us cook the perfect steak … yet not even 10 years ago we managed quite well to figure things out on our own.

Those who are reaching ages of 80 and higher were the children who used to play in the open air, who would run till their lungs burned and the sweat poured; who would eat unprocessed foods and often not be able to overindulge. Fast food was an occasional treat, and when I say occasional, I mean rare.

Families would eat together, and though there must have been horrid, abusive parents, generally family values were embraced, and children learned discipline and respect.

So these young people grew up with their constitutions built around a solid foundation of moderate diets, plenty of exercise, sufficient sunshine, and the all-important societal values.

I wonder about today’s youngsters.

Everyone wants to give their child an easy life, rest, peace, and tranquillity as far as possible … no one wants their child to experience the hardships that they experienced.

But imagine what will happen one day, when those who were exposed to hardship, rejection and struggle leave the workforce and make way for the next generation of fast food chomping, pampered, never-heard-the-wordno, mollycoddled, over-parented young people … who have to deal with other fast food chomping, pampered, never-heard-the-word-no, mollycoddled, over-parented young people.

Will they be able to cope, or will they, after experiencing their first crisis, take their Honda to meet a rock face somewhere? WHAT is heritage?

In a purely clinical sense, it is the sum total of our inherited objects, traditions, monuments and culture; customs.

But, in a broader sense, heritage is also our collective history, and in a country as diverse as ours, our history can be, and often is, defined and interpreted very differently.

Heritage to South Africa is not only our individual customs peculiar to our individual cultures, but the shared history and experiences that make us, ultimately, South African.

Whether experience is influenced by being Indian, Muslim, Khoisan, Xhosa, coloured, black, Zulu, white, Christian, Sotho, Afrikaans, Pedi, Asian, Tswana, European, or Venda, when defining who we are as people, we all describe ourselves as (fill in the blank) South African.

And as South Africans we have a shared past, a history of oppression, from which we have all been liberated.

This liberation, leading to the dawn of our democracy in 1994, has undoubtedly given us the ability to celebrate our individual heritage.

Whether yesterday we celebrated Shaka Zulu, Tuan Guru, Autshumato, or just slapped something on the braai, we could do so because our hard-fought freedom was fought for and died for.

That forms the foundation of our collective heritage, our shared history, and should provide the adhesive for our continued cohesion.

Our country’s motto, in the |Xam language, is Unity in Diversity.

Heritage Day was first celebrated in South Africa in 1995 – a year after that watershed event when the country had its first democratic elections.

So the day should be used to celebrate the start of our collective heritage, rather than dwell on the individual pasts that led us to our aggregated starting point.

Long may the celebration of our collective heritage continue, where, like South Africa is the place where two oceans meet to the point where neither can be clearly defined, the resultant melting pot of the country’s people can unite to become a stronger, unified nation.