Freedom Day, which is celebrated on 27 April in South Africa, marks the anniversary of the first democratic elections in this country in 1994. Exactly 17 years ago, millions queued to make their voices heard – some for the first time ever.

On 27 April every year, South Africa celebrates the anniversary of the first democratic elections held in this country in 1994. Freedom Day charts the progress of our fledgling democracy - its achievements as well as its struggles. Looking back on 17 years of successes as well as setbacks, the time of the year has come around for all of us to evaluate the state of the democracy we live in: is this where we wanted to be?


Celebrating heroes

“There are the heroes who inspired us,” DA leader Helen Zille said in an address shortly before Freedom Day this year. “Luthuli, Gandhi, Mandela, Tambo, Sisulu, Brown, Paton, Suzman, Hani…” she lists. Freedom Day is an opportunity to remember and pay tribute to those who fought and often paid dearly for their freedom and the freedom of all South Africans. Zille continues: “There are also the millions whose names were not captured in the headlines, but who fought back every day for generations, and in the end, triumphed.”

Economic transformation

Although every South African citizen was finally allowed to vote on the 27th of April 1994, other changes have been slow to follow. An imbalanced economic structure troubles South Africans, and many still live in poverty and inequality – they do not have the freedom to achieve, to strive, to create. “Freedom Day symbolises SA's liberation from a white minority rule that not only disenfranchised people of colour but politically and economically oppressed non-white South Africans,” Fedusa (Federation of Unions of SA) general secretary, Dennis George, was reported as saying. This disempowerment and oppression exists on all levels, and on an economic level it has a devastating effect on the well-being and future of millions upon millions of South Africans, creating a self-perpetuating problem that is a daily nightmare for them. In a statement to mark Freedom Day this week, the SA Communist Party addressed a growing concern about the Apartheid-style economic infrastructure in South Africa and the inequality endemic to it. “Our attempts at a gradual economic transformation have only landed us with a failed BEE project which is at the heart of the corruption we see today,” the statement read.

Reconciliation

Although it has been 17 years since democracy was institutionalised in this country, problems such as poverty, inequality, racism, oppression and poor service delivery lower the living standards of millions of South Africans daily. Zille concludes her Freedom Day address by mentioning the issue of reconciliation and transformation. “Nelson Mandela showed us the way forward,” she said. “Reconciliation takes courage and generosity. And it takes time.”

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