Debate on role of cultural values
Do cultural values serve as a moral compass in a modern world?
This angle will be carefully dissected at what is likely to be a highly informative Daily Dispatch and National Heritage Council (NHC) dialogue on Wednesday.
With recent incidents involving churches and violence at some schools still fresh in the mind, NHC chief executive, advocate Sonwabile Mancotywa, Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi and Nkosinathi Biko, executive trustee of the Steve Biko Foundation, will debate the topic at the Guild Theatre in East London at 6pm.
“In the dialogue and public engagement, we wish to get the views and reflections and possible interventions of how culture and African tradition, and ultimately heritage, can be restored in contributing to nation-building,” NHC spokesperson Danny Goulkan said.
The dialogue will be centred on how cultural values contribute to shaping societal values.
“We believe in understanding and embracing each other’s diverse culture and through talking about this, will allow us as a nation to find each other in work and communal spaces, schools and public gatherings.” Goulkan said there had been only positive feedback following previous dialogues hosted across the country.
“We have seen tremendous improvement in inter-cultural harmony, despite the racial attacks that we see sporadically around the country, and we think that the reason we are able to talk about these things as a society, shows a willingness to get closer to each other often and to embrace our diversity,” Goulkan said.
● Twenty lucky Daily Dispatch readers stand a chance to win Mancotywa’s Continuing Critical Conversation on Heritage. Entrants need to write a short essay on one of these: My South Africa after 1994; Staying rooted to culture in the modern world; When I speak my language; or on My culture, my heritage, one nation.
Send your essay with your full name, ID number and postal address to MyHeritage@nhc.org.za before 10am on May 20.
Selected essays will be published online while winners will be notified by May 25.