On Freedom Day
Today is a public holiday in South Africa –
Freedom Day. It was on this day in 1994 that the country held it’s first free,
non-racial democratic elections, Nelson Mandela was voted into the office of
the President, and the Republic of South Africa broke free of the chains of colonialization
and apartheid.
I have vague recollections of this
happening; I was 13 at the time and woefully ignorant of world events, though I
remember hearing the word apartheid on the news and asking my mom what it
meant. South Africa might have well been
a different planet to me back then.
But here I am today, in this place I now
call home; a place I love living and with a myriad of cultures I’m slowly
learning more about… in lockdown. It’s
strange, this dissonance, a holiday to celebrate freedom while we’re forced to
stay home.
Trevor Noah, a South African comedian
and television personality, talks about growing up mostly inside as a kid, because
his very existence was illegal in South Africa during apartheid. I can only imagine what life was like in
those times, and it makes me so very grateful for the freedom I’ve been
privileged to be born with, and others my life choices have afforded me. As I think along those lines, I think I don’t
really have a great understanding of what freedom really is; like a fish not
being able to understand water, I’ve always lived in and with freedom. And I’m so, so grateful.
And I’m grateful to get to live here in this
time, to be a part of the free South Africa, to learn and grow and work together
to see greater things yet to come for this nation and her people.
Happy Freedom Day!
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| My favorite ever photo I've taken in South Africa - Boulders Beach, Western Cape |
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