Taking a helicopter flip down memory lane
There are moments in life that are big moments. Some are accidentally stumbled upon, others planned to the second. Anniversaries, births, deaths — they dot a timeline, and glow or tarnish with age depending on the remembering of them.
The tumultuous anticipation of the future in the early 1990s followed by a relatively calm transition to democracy is a big nugget on our nation’s memory strand.
On May 10 1994, I and my fellow students wandered the short distance from the arts campus of Pretoria Tech to the
lawns of the Union Buildings to be part of the inauguration of our new democracy’s president.
During the ceremony, helicopters dangling the new flag flew over the thousands of us crammed onto the lawn on that warm and sunny autumn day. The thousands cheered at the sight. Air force jets flew over, the thousands cheered again. The thousands cheered a lot — I sometimes couldn’t tell why, but I went with it. We were a sunbaked mass of optimism.
Bracketed in that moment was the word freedom. Freedom was stuck into one big, bright wedge in time that day, almost a middle finger to the abyss after crossing it, saying, “There, we did it.”
But we failed to pack a lantern for the journey, for when the glow of that big moment would grow distant, far from reach and barely able to illuminate the path ahead. The distance is 25 years, and but for a few flickers, we are floundering. But not for long if we can appropriate freedom correctly by being of the mind that freedom is something always to be striven for, something to fan and fuel the embers of. And not only on occasion, but every day. And not just by one, but by all. LS
●