South African History Online

Authority

Academic

Territories

ZA

Primacy

secondary

Commercial interest

none

Retrieved

2026-08-13

State

Read and citable

Original document

An independent, non-partisan South African history archive established in 1998. The most valuable cultural source in this catalogue, because it documents a DISPUTE rather than a practice: 24 September is Heritage Day, Shaka Day and National Braai Day at once, the Braai Day campaign was launched by an individual and later endorsed by the National Heritage Council, and the article states plainly that whose heritage is being celebrated remains contested. Any account of the braai that leaves that out is a worse account, and BBQHQ would have written one without this source.

History, Culture

• Explicitly not culinary practice: A history archive documents how a practice is contested, not how to cook.

• South African History Online records that 24 September was observed in KwaZulu-Natal as Shaka Day, that the Inkatha Freedom Party objected when the proposed Public Holidays Bill omitted it, and that Heritage Day was created as a compromise allowing all South Africans to celebrate their cultural traditions.

  Where it applies:

  South Africa.

  A documented legislative and political history, not a culinary one.

• South African History Online records that Jan Scannell, known as Jan Braai, later launched the Braai4Heritage initiative calling on people to celebrate shared roots by braaing on Heritage Day, that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu became its national spokesperson in 2007 after initial scepticism, and that the National Heritage Council endorsed it in 2008.

  An individual's campaign, later institutionally endorsed. Not a government designation.

  2007 for Tutu's involvement, 2008 for the National Heritage Council endorsement.

• South African History Online states that defining whose heritage is being celebrated on 24 September remains contested in a country with eleven official languages and the legacy of apartheid, and that one person's heritage may represent another's trauma.

  A statement that a question is open, from an archive whose purpose is documenting contested history.

  Directly contradicts the framing — common outside South Africa — of the braai as an uncomplicated symbol of national unity.

• National Braai Day is a campaign, not an ancient observance: Jan Scannell launched the Braai4Heritage initiative on the existing Heritage Day, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu became its national spokesperson in 2007, and the National Heritage Council endorsed it in 2008.
• 24 September is Heritage Day, Shaka Day and National Braai Day at once. Heritage Day was itself a compromise after the Inkatha Freedom Party objected to Shaka Day's omission from the Public Holidays Bill, and South African History Online states that whose heritage is being celebrated remains contested.

If this source changes, these are the claims that need rechecking. That is the point of recording provenance per claim rather than per page.