Let us find unity in our diversity

I BELIEVE that racism is a moral catastrophe and it should be rejected with contempt.

I must also admit it is always a good experience to see a united South Africa during Heritage Month. I see people embracing one another, wearing traditional attires and sharing their traditional meals.

In his first month of office, former President Nelson Mandela proclaimed: “Each of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”

The mistake we mostly make is to embrace one another only during the campaigns aimed at fostering social cohesion. Soon after that, we go back to our usual ways of discrimination based on race, culture or ethnicity. Why don’t we completely stop hurling insults and ridiculing one another simply because we are of different races or speak different languages?

Our different races, cultures, languages and traditions combine to beautify our country just like flowers with different colours in a garden.

Social cohesion is very important as it helps us to embrace and acknowledge each other and make us realise that we need each other.

No race or language is superior to the other. So we must bear in mind that although we do things differently, we are all human first.

Racial and cultural intolerance will surely take us backwards. Malphia Honwane

by e-mail