A realisation that our freedom was hard-won finally hits home

Twenty-six years ago my mother was 35 and my father, 38. They were married with four children. My mother worked as a nurse while my father seemed to have spent most of his adulthood evading apartheid police. By the time they were allowed to vote for the very first time, they had lost friends and relatives to the violence that accompanied apartheid.

Each year Freedom Day has come and gone without me thinking too much about the significance the day holds. This year, it’s somehow different. Now I am all too aware of how hard and traumatising it was for those who fought for a different South Africa.

Not being able to go anywhere or do anything on this public holiday has given me the time to reflect on the true meaning of the day.

My father is an amazing storyteller and he has lots of entertaining and heartbreaking stories of what it was like to be an anti-apartheid activist. He lost friends, was in and out of jail and couldn’t be a present partner and father to his wife and then two small children.

I can only imagine the kind of perseverance and fortitude it took to keep fighting for a free South Africa despite the violence, harassment and loss of lives.

The road to 27 April 1994 was long and difficult. There are many human rights that I enjoy today because people never stopped believing there could be a radically different South Africa to the one designed by apartheid’s architects.

Freedom Day to me means recognising that people fought fiercely for our rights. Many sacrifices were made, many lives were lost and that means that we, as young people, have to do our part in holding our government accountable and call out injustices whenever we see them. 

Today I am 26. I have voted twice. I can live anywhere I like. I can work wherever I like. And I can do and say things my parents never could during apartheid. 

None of this would’ve been possible if it weren’t for the enormous sacrifices people like my father made. DM

This article is part of a series of reflections from Young Maverick writers about what Freedom Day means to them.