The National Freedom Day celebrations took place at the AJ Swanepoel Stadium in Ermelo on Sunday, April 27.
People from all walks of life came together to celebrate freedom and commemorate the first post-apartheid elections held on April 27, 1994. This year’s event also marks the conclusion of the observance of 30 years of freedom and democracy in South Africa.

The minister of mineral and petroleum resources, Gwede Mantashe, represented President Cyril Ramaphosa at this national celebration. Mantashe said on this day, 31 years ago, the world’s eyes were on South Africa.

“For the very first time in South Africa, Africans, Indians, coloureds and whites were allowed to vote alongside one another for the government of their choice. Before then, we were still a deeply divided nation. Tensions were high, but the dire predictions of a race war did not materialise. Instead, millions of people around the country stood patiently and peacefully in long queues, waiting for their turn to cast their votes.”

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Mantashe said that in April 1994 the dignity of South Africa’s people – regardless of race – was restored. “We showed the world that it was indeed possible to move beyond a bitter history. We showed that dialogue is more powerful than any weapon. We chose reconciliation over revenge, healing over hatred, peace over conflict.”

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Mantashe said SA remains committed to a progressive foreign policy outlook and to engaging with countries of the Global North and the Global South in pursuit of national interest.

“We stand with the peoples of Palestine, the Western Sahara, the eastern DRC, Sudan and Yemen, and we stand with victims of gender oppression in Afghanistan and other parts of the world,” said Mantashe.

Even now, there are people who seek to drive a wedge between South Africans. He said they seek to rekindle the embers of racial bitterness.

“These efforts will fail, because even the inhumane system of apartheid failed to destroy what binds us together as human beings. History records how people of all races fought against oppression and injustice. We will not allow anyone else to define us, to tell us who and what we are, or to turn us against one another. We must roundly reject any attempts to divide us along racial lines.”

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Mantashe also looked into some of the challenges faced by the people of this country. “Poverty, unemployment and inequality are deep wounds that prevent us from reaching our full potential as a country.”

Mantashe said SA will forever remain a country that belongs to all who live in it. “We are determined to build a country where the white and the black child have equal opportunities and an equal chance at a better life.”
He also remembered many heroes of Afrikaner heritage who took a stance in defence of the liberty and freedom of South Africans: Beyers Naudé (Oom Bey), Bram Fischer, Breyten Breytenbach, Athol Fugard, Ingrid Jonker and many others who turned their backs on the tyranny of apartheid.