Sunday 05 / April / 2026
Muscat: South Africa’s Ambassador to Oman has welcomed stronger ties between his country and Oman, as well as among the various expat communities in the Sultanate.
Speaking to the Times of Oman, Manabile Shogole, the South African Ambassador to the Sultanate, said the Rainbow Nation was a country that wanted to be friends with everyone.
“We are friends with everyone,” he said. “We have Omani friends, we have friends from other countries; so they are invited to come and we can celebrate together what we call the South African heritage. We get a lot of people who ask questions about South Africa.”
“Some people might ask about tourist destinations in South Africa, while others may ask about being able to find halal food in South Africa, and the answer is certainly yes,” added Shogole.
“Others might even ask ‘when I go to South Africa, as a person belonging to a certain religion, will I be able to pray?’ and the answer will again be yes. The South Africa we are in today is a united South Africa. Some questions might even go further. We are simply trying to showcase a glimpse of South
Africa.”
Shogole said that the unified South Africa was the vision of the nation under former president Nelson Mandela.
“Former President Nelson Mandela referred to us as a Rainbow Nation, in that we may be different, but we are united in our diversity,” he said. “We know that we have approximately 3,500 to 4,500 South Africans in Oman. Some of them are in the education sector, the health sector and various other business sectors.”
Keen on strengthening ties within Oman, Shogole had invited people from all of the local and expat communities in the country to celebrate Heritage Day with him on Friday, October 5. The event was held at the Sidab Farmhouse in Seeb.
“What this actually implies is something that belongs to us as a collective that we have inherited from our forebears that we are holding in trust for the next generations,” he added.
“The month of September is during which South Africans celebrate everything we have inherited, be it tourism-related, culture-related and so on, and we have ring-fenced September 24 as Heritage Day.”
“We were supposed to celebrate it during the month of September; however, owing to a few issues beyond the Embassy’s control, we decided to hold it on Friday, October 5, in Muscat, where South Africans attended in large numbers,” said Shogole.
“What we did was to promote South Africa as a tourist destination from a number of cultural perspectives. On that day, people came, brought their own barbecue, their own meat, their own drinks, and so on and we came together.”
“You are not just expected to eat and consume what you have brought alone, but you are expected to go to the next person because we as South Africans are from different cultural backgrounds,” he added.
“You would have seen a melting pot of communities. We have 11 official languages but there are certain commonalities among those languages. Apart from that, there are other languages we include which are not necessarily official languages. You would’ve also seen people dressed in various codes, so that we together celebrate our heritage.”
“People also play different types of music in South Africa across the board from different cultural backgrounds,” he said. “People dance together, but it rubs positively on all of us. It is a kind of all-inclusive event of cultures.”
