Reflections on Freedom Month 2022

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Annually, South Africa observes April as Freedom Month. The month is a call to reflect on the country’s painful apartheid past and celebrate its journey toward freedom. The experiences of everyday South Africans in the past two years have forced us to reflect on our democracy and notions of freedom. The pieces in this dossier challenge the reader to reflect honestly on the journey toward democracy and our daily realities. Nadine Dirks’ reflection on indigenous land, heritage and ownership looks at the promise of freedom for indigenous people and the theft of their land in the 21st century. “Accidental” mental health activist Christine Nxumalo reflects on the senseless death of her sister Virginia Machpelah in the Life Esidimeni tragedy and her journey to seek justice and dignity in death for her sister. Ling Sheperd reflects on the multiple truths of freedom and says that freedom in South Africa is not absolute. Vivienne Mentor-Lalu provides us a feminist analysis that reflects on the impact of Covid-19 on women in South Africa.

Graffiti captured by a trail runner on Table Mountain’s Tafelberg Road near Cape Town.

Our Freedoms Have Multiple Truths

Freedom is not absolute in South Africa and never will be. In fact, the notion of absolute freedom, while it sounds good to say, is an absurd fallacy.

By Ling Sheperd

Artwork by Lady Skollie, “We have come to take you home: A tribute to Diana Ferrus”, based on Ferrus’s 1998 poem to Khoisan ancestor Sarah Baartman who, in 1810, was taken from Cape Town to Europe to be put on public display.

My Reflections on Freedom: The Life of the Indigenous and Marginalised on Freedom Day

An insight into Freedom Day for dispossessed indigenous people fighting giants to preserve sacred land and water. How can you redevelop sacred land by infilling parts of a river with concrete bulk?

By Nadine Dirks

Mxolisi Mavimbela presents a manifesto for homeless people to representatives of political parties at a Durban meeting on Thursday.

Life Esidimeni: My Reflections on Freedom

The case of Life Esidimeni is one of the most significant violations of health and human rights in post-apartheid South Africa.

By Christine Nxumalo

Through people coming together, we break the silence of the past

Freedom in a Time of Femicide

Freedom is still an unreachable destination from the peripheries. It is an ideal that easily slips out of our mouths as South Africans, but with little to show for women and gender minorities.

By Mbalenhle Matandela

Through a Gendered Lens: South Africa’s Covid Pandemic

South Africa, like the rest of the world, emerged from the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic battered and bruised on many fronts.

By Vivienne Mentor-Lalu

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