There was a time in the not so distant past when we were not free – when many aspects of our lives were prescribed by people other than ourselves.
Through collective efforts of those who remained in the country and the exiles, pressure came to bear on the then apartheid regime to screaming and shouting agree to the inevitability of a negotiated political settlement. Change had reached a point of no return and the regime had to adapt to changed political circumstances or die.
As a consequence of these combined efforts and the support of the international community we woke up one blessed morning to see Dr Nelson Mandela being inaugurated as the country`s first democratically elected president.
So moved by this miraculous turn of events was our
From that point on we all became South Africans, irrespective of colour, creed, gender or class. We in a way were destined to be one big happy family. A new world without restrictions opened for us all.
No more would books be banned or dissenting voices met with the mighty wrath of an illegitimate regime. We could think and express our thoughts with neither fear nor favour.
We were free to be who we wished to be.
It is over a decade and half since the dawn of freedom and democracy. This passage of time calls on all of us to go into a review process of some sort. How far have gone as a people in our individual capacities. Have we grabbed the opportunities that came with the dawn of freedom and democracy?
Or are we still the same people we were before the democratic break-through of 1994 and threatening to remain thus until the fullness of time?
If the over fifteen or so years of freedom and democracy haven`t transformed us into better people then all the sacrifices made in the course of the struggle for liberation were in vain.
I am raising all these issues because we appear to go about our chores in a casual manner, irrespective of where fate has tossed us.
One had thought that with freedom we would have gone beyond ourselves in whatever area of engagement to celebrate the fact that we at last have the untrammeled space to test our abilities to the maximum.
What we instead have is a celebration of mediocrity. This has killed whatever drive for excellent that is ingrained in all of us. Even our best brains have resorted to an asprin approach to a success which has been mutilated beyond recognition.
Even the success we talk about has become something else that requires no effort but connectedness to those with the power and authority to dispense patronage.
Obviously this approach will render meaningless our sacrifices and of those long departed in the course of the struggle for liberation. What we will reap in the fullness of time will be a wasteland that can only clothe us in shame.
All is however not lost. We still can redeem whatever is left of our integrity and redirect the ship in the right destination which will show the world that indeed our time has come.
There is more to post-apartheid
WE need to go back to the basics – be proud of what we do and do it as best as we can. This regardless of whether it being the teaching of children in a hidden away village or the sweeping of the streets in the provincial capital.
Now that we are free, we need to go about our daily business like men and women who are free from the mental bondage of our past.
As the ANC Youth League president Julius Malema said during this year`s Peter Mokaba Memorial Lecture:”To be a mayor, to be a councilor, to be a premier, minister or president is not different from being a priest – it is a calling.”
That is what being free entails, looking beyond whatever trappings that high office accord and selflessly serve those who have trusted us with the stewardship of this country and its institutions.
PS. This piece was first published in Limpopo-On-Line news portal.
