As South Africa marks Freedom Day, Stellenbosch residents and academics have expressed mixed feelings about what it means to them 32 years after the country’s first democratic election. For some, it is a day to honour those who lost their lives fighting for freedom in South Africa, while for others it is a reminder of unfulfilled promises.
WHAT IS FREEDOM DAY?
Freedom Day, commemorated annually on 27 April, marks the day of South Africa’s first post-Apartheid democratic election in 1994. Every person, regardless of the colour of their skin, could vote.
Mandilakhe Mchaka, a resident of Kayamandi said, while people say there is freedom, it is limited.
“In South Africa, racism still exists. A certain race still has more power than the other race. There are no job opportunities and many people are not working. I know that not everyone in South Africa will have a job so I do not see that there is freedom in this country because of that,” said Mchaka. According to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), the youth unemployment rate was 46.1% in 2025, showing significant barriers for young people entering the workforce.
FREEDOM DAY “A PERMANENT JOURNEY TO FREEDOM”
Professor Geo Quinot, from the department of law at Stellenbosch University (SU), said celebrating Freedom Day every year is a reminder that this is a permanent journey to freedom.
“You do not attain freedom, you work towards it. I would like for people to reflect on where we are and where we are not. What is the unfinished business? Freedom Day has become largely symbolic and no longer substantive and I think that is problematic,” said Quinot.
He questioned how we could regard ourselves as free when certain parts of the country are still underdeveloped.
“If you drive on the N2 between Stellenbosch and the airport, you cannot help but be confronted by extreme lack of freedom. You cannot look at those informal settlements and think that as a society we are truly free; we are not,” he said.
Tanya Smith, an Ida’s Valley resident, said she is unhappy with the current state of her community . She said houses and infrastructure are in poor condition.
“Nothing has been fixed. The roads [have not been fixed] and they need to give the people that were left behind houses,” said Smith.
‘FREE’ BUT NOT FREE
Demaine Solomons, a professor of systematic theology and ecclesiology at SU, said certain race groups that were heavily affected by apartheid still have trauma.
Not everyone is as comfortable as others “to walk freely around Stellenbosch”, said Solomons. “I am sure that people in Kayamandi would have a totally different story as to how it feels like to walk around Bird Street as opposed to walking around in Kayamandi. It is not that simple and straightforward,” he said.
Reflecting on the 32 years since South Africa’s first democratic election, Professor Amanda Gouws from the department of political science at SU, explained that elections took place across two days because there were so many people who wanted to vote.
“People could exercise their votes. It took us into a new phase of a negotiated constitution and also one of the most progressive constitutions around the Bill of Rights, if you look at it globally. This was a participative process because it is not every democracy that gets a constitution through participation,” said Gouws.
FROM RESTRICTIONS TO FREEDOM
Usiphile Makangela, who also lives in Kayamandi, said he was excited about celebrating Freedom Day. He said people nowadays have a right to all forms of education. Before democracy, specific races were limited to a certain type of education curriculum.
Now, “most people can now go to universities, while in the past not everyone had the access to university,” he said. While this is significant progress towards freedom, few South Africans actually access education at a tertiary level. According to a report by the Department of Higher Education and Training, published in 2024, about 6.0% of South Africans (aged 24 to 65) had a diploma and 7.3% had a degree in 2023.
Francois Elias, a Cloetesville resident, is also excited about Freedom Day as he now has freedom to walk where he wants without being restricted.
Kira Alberts, a research coordinator at the Centre for Research on Democracy (CREDO) at SU, emphasised that government needs to remember where we are coming from and why it was an important day.
“It is something that needs to be protected and worked out constantly; we do not want to repeat history. For many South Africans it is far from the promised reality. Even now we are turning to a GNU [Government of National Unity] after 1994 and it feels like some [uncertainty] about where we are going,” she said.
According to a statement by The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), this year’s local government elections will take place between November this year and January next year.