The Power of Telling Our Own Stories
We are the stories we are told, and we are the stories we tell ourselves and the world. Your culture is your story.
To change our circumstances, we need to change our story. We need to reclaim, reconfigure, preserve and promote our culture, our history, our legacy and our heritage.
Cultural Heritage is the tangible and intangible legacy of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all legacies of past generations are “heritage”; however, heritage is a product of selection by society.
In our case, our struggle for liberation and victory against slavery, colonial invasion and plunder, and apartheid colonialism, is our rich heritage as South African, southern African and African society.
Cultural Heritage includes tangible culture (such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, archive materials, books, works of art, and artifacts), intangible culture (such as folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge), and natural heritage (including culturally significant landscapes, and biodiversity).
The term, “Cultural Heritage” is often used in connection with issues relating to the protection of indigenous intellectual property.
The deliberate action of keeping Cultural Heritage from the present for the future is known as preservation or conservation, which cultural and historical museums and cultural centres promote.
Preserved heritage has become an anchor of the global tourism industry, a major con
