YOUR VOICE

Opinions on the street

With Freedom Day coming up this weekend, The Rep reporter Uviwe Jara took to the street to ask people what this day means for them and how they will celebrate it.

Xolile Balada from Mlungisi

On this day we celebrate the day in the year when we first voted. It is also a day where we get to not go to work, where some of us hold family rituals. It is a day which is well respected and I will be spending it with my children and the rest of my family.

Chwayita Joy Makaphela from Mlungisi

It means we are able to actually move around freely. Those of us born in the 80s really do understand what freedom is because there were many things we could not do back then. There’s going to be a few things that we, as Unity in Action, are going to be conducting. We will be feeding children.

Nosizwe Kobese from Unifound

Freedom Day to me means we are now living in a free country. I was born in the 90s and back in the day our grandparents were required to carry their identity documents (known with derision as a ‘dompas’) wherever they went. But now we are free there is no need for that. There’s no more discrimination.

Lina-mandla Ngondo from Magxaki

Freedom Day means that we are free now as youth but I do not celebrate it because of all the negative things that are happening in our country. Freedom Day reminds us that we have a voice now which was denied us during the days (of apartheid) oppression. It’s a day where we’re supposed to celebrate the freedom of our country.

Linamandla Sagela from Khayelitsha

Freedom Day to me means we have been a free society since 1994. I can now express my feelings, my views and I can choose whatever I want. As a black society, we are free wherever we want to go compared to the apartheid era. We are living a normal life now and I will be spending my Freedom Day at home.