As the country celebrates the 30th anniversary of the country’s democratic elections, President Cyril Ramaphosa has reminded South Africans, what’s been achieved since the dawn of democracy in 1994. In his weekly ‘From the Desk of the President’ letter, Ramaphosa said every South African’s journey towards nationhood, remains critical, no matter what race they are.
He’s highlighted the importance of this, especially during times of difficulty. He’s called on the country to resist the temptation of retreating into “laagers of ethnicity and race”, and rather “acknowledge feelings of marginalisation and address them.” President Cyril Ramaphosa has reminded the country that the 27th of April 1994, was the day “the country turned its back on apartheid. Beyond the great wrong that was apartheid, it was a system designed to deny people their dignity.”
He described apartheid as a “national humiliation and degradation that ranged from bureaucratic pettiness like whites-only benches, restaurants and beaches, to the brute force that saw families torn apart and forcibly moved from their houses and land”. It was a time when “People were tortured, imprisoned, exiled and killed. The so-called solution of ‘separate development’ resulted in nothing but underdevelopment for the country’s majority”.
He added “
The democratic breakthrough of 1994 began the restoration of the dignity of black South Africans that had been denied and systematically eroded, first by colonialism and then by apartheid.” As the country celebrates Freedom Month, Ramaphosa says it’s a time to remind South Africans that “despite the many challenges our country continues to experience, not least of all the crisis of unemployment, South Africans are pioneering, resourceful and resilient, often in the face of great odds.”
He has however conceded that despite 30 years of democracy, the country is not as far as South Africans hoped it would be by now, despite doing a lot to undo the devastating legacy of apartheid, and ‘confronting other challenges, both from beyond our borders, such as the global financial crisis, and here at home.’ He said that while these, and other challenges, have had an impact on rebuilding the country, they’ve also shown the ‘resilience’ of the South African people, and their ‘resolve to move forward with optimism’.
ALSO READ: South Africa celebrates Freedom Day
