Happy Freedom Day South Africa

Happy Freedom Day South Africa????

I am a child of the 80s and a teenager of the 90s. Growing up in the villages of Malamulele in the 80s, one knew that something was not right. In my family, my older brother only got a TV in 1990, so in the late 80s, when my eyes and ears opened, radio and newspapers were the sources of info. One would hear, from time to time, about the violence in far places of Johannesburg and Pretoria. Our fathers, elder brothers and older villagers that were migrants in theses cities, were our only source of information about this reality. Sometimes they regaled us with stories of violence in a way that made one feel like it would be great to be there. At this time, I knew something was wrong but was not really certain how wrong things were.?

Fast forward to 1990, Nelson Mandela is released from jail after 27 years of incarceration, the ANC, the PAC, and other liberation movements are unbanned, and the exiles return to the country. The Apartheid state barley holds on to power as the international community and capital shun apartheid South Africa. The violence escalated. This was an exciting but scary time, even for us in the far-flung villages. Freedom was in the air. By 1992 I would become a teenager and was starting to understand the evil that was apartheid. Something had to give. It was now clear to me that there were two “South Africas”, a South Africa for the white minority population, and a South Africa for the black majority population. White South Africa was filled with excess resources, great educational institutions, great health facilities, a working local government, beautiful roads, etc,, whilst Black South Africa was defined by violence, unemployment, inferior education, lack of freedoms, etc. This is our legacy and we should continue to acknowledge where we come from.

The killing of Chris Hani by the white supremacist Januz Walus almost plunged the country into a full scale war. But for Nelson Mandela (and the ANC leaders at the time), who gave a national prime time address to the country to calm down the black majority, my view is that the senseless murder of Chris Hani could have tipped the country over the edge. By this time it was clear that apartheid South Africa was in its last legs, and that De Klerk was President only in name. Before he was even elected, political power had shifted to Nelson Mandela and the ANC. This was a period of escalated violence, hope, sometimes despair, all in one. Lives had been lost, families destroyed, communities had disintegrated, dreams killed, in the fight against the evil apartheid state, and this was the time to “win freedom”.

It all culminated in the long queues of 1994 that delivered Nelson Mandela and the ANC to political power. I was now 15 and doing standard nine (Grade 11) in a boarding school in Giyani. The first few years were an exciting time of building. Creating the constitution, a new parliament, new laws, new leaders, etc. In a way the black majority was bound to be disappointed, the hopes were very high, and in retrospect, one wonders if it would have ever been possible to meet those hopes. The process of building a country, creating national, provincial and local governments proved to be very challenging. Whilst the new “rulers” surely had the passion to transform the country, there were clearly no sufficient skills from within their ranks to do the “building of the country”. Maybe we also did not understand that building a new country, with a new constitution, new character, new identity, new anthem, new note pads, new everything, was going to be a hard slog, a real hard slog.

In 1996 I was now a fresh 17 year old university student, and was excited about my own prospects and those of the country. The final few years of the 1990s were defined by this excitement and frustration of building a country. The realization that people and their long-held beliefs would not change overnight. Certain people would refuse point black to “move” into a new South Africa. Whilst Orania is a physical representation of this unwillingness to move and a determined determination to stay in the past, there are others that did not move to Orania but still did not embrace the new country. The majority of South Africans, across colour, different ages, religions, etc., tried to find solutions though to the everyday challenges of a new country. Whilst the economy opened up, South Africa soon realized that there were hard problems of skills, education, crime, corruption, infrastructure, etc., that needed to be solved.?

In the early 2000s, a lot of black South Africans, myself included, had obtained tertiary qualifications and entered the job market in both the public and private sectors. For those like me who were fortunate enough to make it through to those levels, these were exciting times. People bought houses, bought cars, and other started business. These were the times of easy credit globally so many people also accumulated a lot of debt that some of my generation are still trying to deal with. For the majority of the young people though, unemployment was a reality that started to sow seeds of anger and despair. By this time, we started to see corruption and the cost of corruption. We started to see that some, definitely many, of the liberators could not resist the temptation to put their hands in the cookie jar.

Stories of corruption, excesses, appointments that made no sense, started to fill the pages of South African newspapers. The scourge of HIV AIDS became such a reality, and it appeared as though the Government had no idea what to do. People got frustrated and civil movements begun to crop up fighting different societal courses. Senseless crimes continued, and sadly, they continue to this day. At the same time, to be fair, roads were being constructed, airports were being built, schools were being built, electrification of rural communities was accelerated, big houses started to come up all over the places, big suburban houses with new owners, some in towns and villages. There was also just a lot of building. Corruption persisted, nonetheless. So in a sense, the 2000s were a period of rapid success and development, as evidenced by the economic measure of GDP growth over that period, but also evidenced that persistent challenges such as unemployment, jobless growth, growing inequality, crime, and corruption, would not go away.

By this time many started to show frustration with the governing ANC. Has South Africa managed to achieve the objectives of the liberation struggle? Has there been progress? Are we better off than we were in 1994? Has corruption eroded the gains of the post-liberation state? Have we given up on dealing with crime? What about unemployment and joblessness? What about infrastructure, and the economy? Do we have the freedom we wanted? Do we like it? If we don’t like it, what can we do? These, and many more, are questions all of us must grapple with, and surely do grapple with on a daily basis.

Fast forward to the current decade, the kid of the 80s and teenager of the 90s, me, is now a Banking Executive who works and travels the continent of Africa, and has also previously worked in one over the biggest global financial centers in Asia. Is that not part of the success of post-liberation South Africa? But how many out there have had to walk away from hope and dreams? What to make of this Freedom day? Whilst we have many challenges, we also still have many opportunities. I for one realize that no one is coming to save us, our problems will not have microwave solutions. All of us, in our own spaces, must continue to build the South Africa we want. Yes we have load shedding, but we also have the opportunity to build and rebuild a resilient energy supply that will power South Africa and our continent. Yes our economy is not growing but we also have the opportunity to restructure our economy in a manner that will create new jobs that are relevant for a new economy.?

Some of our solutions lie outside political processes and structures. Some among us must also find a way to get involved in political processes whilst some drive change and transformation in and through business, civil society, churches, synagogues, and mosques.?

Happy Freedom Day South Africa ????.?

There is no saviour coming to save us but I still believe in the people of South Africa.?I believe in South Africa. I believe in Africa. I believe