-Some sing freedom, while others moan-
On the 27th of April South Africans will commemorate the nineteen years of freedom, when the first democratic general election was held in the country. They will stand as one and remember the emancipation that came with the power to being able to say, ‘I too am South African, I too matter and I too deserve to be free’. But while a few will sing the songs of freedom, others will moan the whimpers of their songs. Lost in the fog of a liberty sanctioned to cater for some while others are left to wonder what freedom really means to them as South Africans.
What does freedom mean to me?
In the apartheid era, South Africans where singing songs of the struggle but what of freedom, what of its song? The word freedom is a very charming word, with an ambiguous trade to it that has an alluring fragrance that is almost tangible, but then not quite accessible. A fragrance that was meant to be an aroma that would heal and build characters, an aroma that was meant to heal and built a better future for all. As a young, black, queer South African woman I jot down my freedom painted with the bloody tears of mistrust and a future bleak, jaded by the many threats of my so called ‘rights’, obliterated before their rise. I cry because I have not heard the songs of freedom, I have not witnessed the rise of a dream which my ancestors fought so hard for; a dream which they lost their lives for, so for me that dream is yet to be realized.
What is my song for freedom?
This year alone is proof enough that women still lie in shackles of abuse, tormented by the patriarch system. Encouraged to progress but silently being pushed back in regression. This fact remains true not only for the poor but also the rich. Let me elaborate, a woman gets raped every four minutes in this country, this is not the song of freedom. Interpol has named South Africa as the world’s rape capital. Women are more likely to get raped than educated. This is not the song of freedom!! Corrective rape is on a rampage, African men have stopped playing roles of Fathers and brothers and they have become beast. They live in contrast to what the freedom charter states, ’that the people shall govern’, but yet we are singing a different song, holding on to that slave mentality of the apartheid era. Domestic violence has left many a woman on the entrance of death; some sadly have lost their lives to this atrocity. Their songs lost in their lives turned to numbers. Education is not so free and the dream of 94, the dream of democracy has been lost in the labyrinth of our so called ‘freedom’ and I can’t sing my song.
I am dumbfound by a country that in the past experienced so much suffering yet still chooses to hate, still chooses to discriminate. I am a black woman who still finds it hard to believe that the colour of my skin and the size of my butt is the only merit I need to be promoted. I am a lesbian woman, who is vexed by the thought that I cannot love openly. Without having to look around to check if a hate crime is not waiting to smack me in the face or hateful remarks that would deflect me from my ‘freedom’, a lesbian who cannot comprehend the idea of other lesbian women being disgraced by their own people, because they were born poor, their mouths silenced by illiteracy. Women who still cannot breathe a sigh of relief of that freedom we stroked in 94. While many women remain homeless, jobless and helpless in the arms of a system that oppress and repress its own, I cannot claim to be free, I cannot claim to have a song.
I will claim my song
The preamble of South African Constitution and bill of rights states that, every citizen will be protected by the law and the quality of life will improve for all South Africans. Our forefathers, Biko and Fanon believed that individual freedom equates to collective liberation. Without liberation of individuals, without the empowerment of women, without enforcement of equality for the minorities i.e. LGBTI community, our song will remain tuneless and our freedom will remain a mere illusion. Disillusioned by the lie we sing, that our country and its people are free. I personally believe in this axiom, that all beings are created equally. It is without a doubt that I say that no one has the right to claim that some people are more African than others, that some people are human while others subhuman and that my way of loving is unnatural an should be punished. I hope that as we remember this day of liberation that we will take a pledge, as South Africans, as individuals that we will not rest until this song of freedom is heard and sung by all. Kwame Nkrumah, 1st president of Ghana and influential 20th century advocate for Pan Africanism, said, “Freedom is not something you can bestow on another as a gift. Thy claim it as their own and none can keep it from them.” As for me, I will continue to fight to claim back my freedom, with my placard painted with a rainbow flag, with my ‘X’ to mark my vote, with my voice and with my song and I hope that you will join me as we make the illusory dream a reality.
By Mapula Lehong
