South Africa Freedom Day 30 Years After The First All-Race Election

Search TikTok Twitter Instagram Tuesday, 30 April Add location NEWS BUSINESS SPORT ELECTIONS 2024 INVESTIGATIONS POLITICS LIFE OPINION CLIMATE FUTURE SPECIAL PROJECTS 14h ago Share Facebook Twitter Email Adriaan Basson | Boerewors for all: Lessons from a suburban butchery on Freedom Day accreditation Adriaan Basson Comments Comments gifting Gift article add bookmark Bookmark 05:35 On 27 April 1994 all South Africans, irrespective of race and gender, were allowed to vote for the first time in democratic national and provincial elections. (Archive/Netwerk24) On 27 April 1994 all South Africans, irrespective of race and gender, were allowed to vote for the first time in democratic national and provincial elections. (Archive/Netwerk24) If reconciliation and race relations were our most important victories in the first 30 years of democracy, let's unite to defeat poverty and unemployment in the next, writes Adriaan Basson. On Saturday, 27 April, 30 years after South Africa's first democratic election, I found myself in a butchery in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, queuing for biltong and lamb chops. I woke up with an immense sense of gratitude for how far we had come as a country since 1994, only to be sobered by a headline on News24 that the Limpopo government had yet again missed a deadline to eradicate pit toilets at schools. I decided to look for a sign that we would be okay during my shopping trip behind the boerewors curtain. The butchery is not unlike any other in suburban South Africa - men and women in white butcher's jackets, lively music, specials on the wall and fridges lined with fresh cuts from the Karoo, Botswana and elsewhere. On this Saturday morning, Freedom Day, I cast my mind back 30 years ago. We lived on Johannesburg's West Rand, and there was a palpable sense of fear and anxiety in my white neighbourhood about what might happen if the ANC won the election. FRIDAY BRIEFING | 30 years of freedom: A reflection on three decades of democracy White fear was a real thing. Supermarkets ran out of toilet paper and corned beef as my community prepared for the worst. In those days, the only black people in our white, suburban butchery were the staff working behind the counter. After work, they would get into Putco busses or taxis and depart for their homes in Dobsonville or Kagiso. Thirty years later, the face of middle-class suburbia has wholly changed. On Saturday, I witnessed a diverse group of people queuing for the same boerewors and biltong. They live together, side-by-side, with the possibility of a race war buried far in the past. As much as a group of people queuing for meat should not be strange or unique without context, it is worth remembering the dark, divisive past we left behind in 1994. And celebrating how far we have come. South Africa is not a country on the brink of a civil war. And despite the attempts of some politicians and agent provocateurs to ignite racial tension for their own personal gain, the majority of South Africans are not interested in the politics of race. They have other urgent issues to worry about: load shedding, water, the cost of living, poor public education, crumbling public infrastructure and growing unemployment, to mention a few. The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation's latest reconciliation barometer found 75% of South Africans believed a more united country was desirable and possible (72%). Seventy-nine percent of people agreed apartheid was a crime against humanity, and for 85%, being South African is an important part of their identities. "While daily interactions have increased, the pace of change has been slower in terms of forming closer social relationships. Most South Africans believe that more reconciliation is still needed but identify economic inequality, racism, and corruption as the biggest barriers to further progress," the report found. It would be foolish to suggest racism is a thing of the past; we still have way too many incidents of structural and institutional racism at schools, companies and in society at large. But there can be no denying that, 30 years later, race relations have greatly improved. READ | Rapule Tabane: SA has achieved a lot in 30 years, but it’s Not Yet Uhuru! Where to from here? My colleague, Rapule Tabane, put it best when he wrote in City Press: "In a society that has achieved democracy, you do not live your entire life celebrating the history of liberation without squaring it up with the difficulties of your current realities". He then adds: "But the saddest indictment of our 30 years of democracy is that most black people are still trapped in a cycle of poverty and unemployment." If reconciliation was our most significant success in the first 30 years of democracy, let's unite to end this scourge of poverty and unemployment, rooted in a poor education system, in the next 30. - Adriaan Basson is editor-in-chief of News24 and co-author of Who Will Rule South Africa? (Flyleaf Publishers). *Want to respond to the columnist? Send your letter or article to opinions@news24.com with your name and town or province. You are welcome to also send a profile picture. We encourage a diversity of voices and views in our readers' submissions and reserve the right not to publish any and all submissions received.