In South Africa in 2024, freedom means a lot more to the people than just the ability to vote in an election. Freedom is the ability to celebrate a democracy in which social inequality is an exception and not the general rule, where economic empowerment is not restricted to a select few and development is inclusive, regardless of sex, race and class. Freedom for the youth is the ability to thrive in an economy that is truly supportive of their dreams.
South Africans will be going to the polls on 29 May in the seventh general elections since the end of Apartheid in 1994. Interestingly, 2024 is a symbolic year as South Africans and many countries in Africa who supported the fight against apartheid celebrate 30 years of freedom. As a kid, I remember feeling a sense of pride in the election of Nelson Mandela, while listening to my parents talk about South Africa.
He was my first memory of a love for a President. It did not help that back home in Nigeria, we were at the time battling with a military dictatorship. Just a year before that in 1993, Nigerians were promised an election and a transition to democracy, which was later brutally denied the people.
I obviously could not relate with a military Head of State and it made sense to connect with Nelson Mandela as my President. The freedom celebrated in South Africa in 1994 vibrated across Africa and it inspired a new form of hope in the power of a people-driven struggle for freedom. It was our democracy, in which black South Afric.
