Freedom Day

Happy Freedom Day everyone!

Today, 13 years ago, South Africa held its first free and fair, democratic elections. 27 April 1994. Unfortunately, I was only 14 - too young to vote. Our nearest polling station was just a block or two away from my house, and the queue from the polling station reached about half way to our house. I don't think I really understood the importance of the occassion at the time, maybe to an extent, but not fully. But I remember how excited everyone was. I remember my mom sending me home to get biscuits for the people in the queue around us, as we waited for hours in the sun.

Today is Freedom Day, in celebration of that day. When we hear "freedom day," maybe we interpret it to mean that on that day the 80% or so of our population who were opressed gained their freedom, in the form of the right to vote. Which is true and very worth celebrating. But in actual fact, we all received our freedom that day. Because if that day hadn't come, I would not be free to be friends with the people I am friends with now, to go the places I go, to live the life I live. I would be privileged, but not free. So today we celebrate freedom for all of us, symbolised by the vote of April 27, 1995.

In the words of Melissa Steyn, "South Africa has never been more normal than it is now."