Don’t trivialise our national days!
ON National Women’s Day, 9 August, we went to a prominent clothing retailer to return a defective item of clothing.
My wife was greeted by several assistants with “Happy Women’s Day”. A similar greeting was extended at other stores.
This is anathema to us, and we patiently explained that such a greeting was inappropriate on several levels.
It is fine to say Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Father’s/Mother’s Day or Happy Diwali/Christmas/Eid on the respective days.
National Days such as Women’s Day, Youth Day, Freedom Day are not days of celebration but days of commemoration to pay tribute to the memory of those who took the plunge and threw in their lot to fight for the liberation of South Africa.
Many were harassed, detained, jailed for long periods, exiled and some were killed by apartheid security forces or their proxies. Consequently, when such days are set aside as public holidays, it is to remember the great sacrifices made and to re-dedicate ourselves to sustain the democracy for which so high a price was paid.
As well meaning as the “Happy…Day” greeting is, it stems largely from ignorance of the significance of the day, its historical context, and its impact on the liberation struggle.
Our interactions with a number of persons below 40 (and some older) indicate either a complete ignorance of our history or a confused understanding of our past.
Since history is not a compulsory subject at schools, sadly, little is known about the incredible complexity of the struggle to free SA.
This can and must be corrected. It is the civic duty of each South African to know the history of our land, just so that we do NOT repeat the mistakes of the past.
The corporate sector is on some level helping to commercialise National Commemorative Days. They see it as little more than another opportunity to increase their profit margins! We must reject this as insulting to the memory of so many martyrs and a trivialisation of our history.
If the corporate sector really wants to make a contribution, it needs to educate itself and its staff of the significance of National Days and then examine ways in which it could make a positive contribution.
It could, for example, on Women’s Day, set up a bursary fund to assist 10 tertiary female students through three years of study or contribute to one year’s financial support of women’s shelters.
How about adding to a series of discourses around the horrific sexism that warps the minds of many men? There is so much that can be done to end the horror to which we subject the majority of SA. (Women are in the majority!) There are a host of other meaningful ways to add value to the commemoration.
We need to remember the incredible bravery of the women who marched a hundred years ago in the Orange Free State against the 1913 Land Act, which set aside (another word for robbed and stole) just 13% of SA’s land for the so-called “nonwhites”!
We remember the 20 000-strong women’s march in Pretoria in 1956, against the pass laws. We need to remember the amazing women of the Black Consciousness era and the UDF/ Mass Democratic Movement and we need to remember all the millions of women in rural backwaters for the enormity of their sacrifices.
We need to pay tribute to these incredible souls for their sacrifices so that today we can enjoy the freedoms we have been bequeathed.
The same applies to all our National Days. Give thoughtful respect where it is due.