As we celebrate freedom day in South Africa, I reflect on what it means to be free since the country’s first fully non-racial democratic election was held in 1994.
What does it mean to be free?
If I were to use myself as a mirror to reflect on what freedom is or to identify what it means to be free, I’d have to say that being free means not being told what to do or how to be, writes Cape {Town} Etc’s, Byron Lukas.
Being free is something you can’t see, but you can feel it. It is a unique something only you as an individual can experience, on your own time and wherever you find yourself in life. Being free is not a choice or an option granted to you, it’s more personal than that. Being free is a responsibility, it is your own power.
As a 25-year-old male from Mitchells Plain, being free is a necessary tool required to rise up against your circumstances in the ghetto. I remember my first taste of freedom at the age of 18; my graduation. I was free to take on the streets. At that time, experiencing freedom, or “free time” as it’s called, was an unbelievable new phenomenon.
Despite being physically free from anything that keeps you locked up, freedom is also the privilege of doing things that make you sleep peacefully at night. The body can be free, but the mind can be trapped in a prison, sharing a cell with countless other inmates.
Over the years, being free is what got me through days of not feeling good enough to stand on the podium with others, being free is what makes me as a person, it helps me express myself, my thoughts and my beliefs.
Being free gives me the voice to raise my opinion and to object to things I don’t believe in. Being free is what allows me to move and make moves. Being free has laid the foundation on which I built my life. Without freedom, you’re a prisoner roaming the Earth. Being free has saved my life. It’s given me the chance to do all the things society said I couldn’t.
Being free is something everyone should feel. You can have love, but if you don’t have the freedom to express it, then you need to do some checking. Being free is like the remote control to your own TV, it’s as liberating as walking through the White House without a suit.
Being free has got me this far, and it will even get me further.
The father of our nation, Nelson Mandela, once said: “As I walked out the door towards the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”
Picture: Mitchells Plain Online