Freedom Under Scrutiny: Apartheid versus Today

As South Africa marks another Freedom Day, we do more than commemorate a date on the calendar. We revisit 27 April 1994, when millions stood patiently in long queues to cast a vote that many had been denied for generations. We remember the courage of men and women who carried the moral weight of a nation on their shoulders, people such as Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Desmond Tutu. We remember those whose names never made it into history books but whose blood watered the tree of democracy. Across race, tribe and nationality, there were those who stood on the right side of history and paid the ultimate price. The question that lingers today, however uncomfortable, is whether the freedom they fought for has translated into a freedom that works for everyone.

It is not uncommon to hear a troubling refrain in conversations across taxi ranks, lecture halls and social media platforms. Some argue that life was better under apartheid, pointing to potholes, corruption scandals and the stubbornly high unemployment rate. According to Statistics South Africa, the official unemployment rate had been standing above 30 percent since the fourth quarter of 2025, with youth unemployment significantly higher. Crime statistics released by the South African Police Service continue to reflect alarming levels of violent crime, including gender based violence. Divorce rates and social instability are often cited as evidence of a society in moral decline. On the surface, the numbers seem to tell a story of regression rather than progress.

Yet numbers do not exist in a vacuum. One of the most important truths we often overlook is that data collection today is far more comprehensive and transparent than it was before 1994. Under apartheid, statistics were not merely tools for understanding society; they were instruments of control. Large sections of the population were deliberately excluded or undercounted. Many rural communities and townships were not properly surveyed. Unemployment among black South Africans was structurally embedded in a system that restricted movement and economic participation, yet it was not recorded with the urgency or honesty we see today. Crime, particularly within black communities, was frequently ignored unless it threatened the state. Gender based violence existed in silence, protected by patriarchy and by a legal system that did not see black women as worthy of protection.

We must remember that patriarchy was more rigid then than it is now. A woman was often groomed to obey without question. Domestic violence was dismissed as a private matter. Who would lay charges in a society that believed sparing the rod would spoil the child, and where the law itself was complicit in oppression? The apparent absence of statistics did not mean the absence of suffering. It meant the absence of recognition. Today, when we read about high rates of gender based violence, it is painful. But it is also evidence that we are counting, documenting and confronting realities that were once buried beneath fear and silence.

There is also the argument about infrastructure. Yes, cities were built. Roads, bridges and public buildings rose from the ground during apartheid. Industrial zones flourished and certain urban centres were meticulously maintained. But at what cost and for whose benefit? Those structures were erected through exploitative labour practices that resembled partial slavery. Black workers were paid meagre wages, often far below what would be considered a living wage today. They worked under harsh conditions and were subjected to humiliating forms of discipline. Pass laws controlled their movement and separated families. It is easy to praise efficiency when the workforce has no rights. Slavery is effective in producing output, but it is inhumane in its method and devastating in its legacy.

Freedom, by its nature, complicates efficiency. Workers today have rights protected by the Constitution and labour legislation. They are entitled to fair wages, safe working conditions and collective bargaining. They work not merely to survive physically, but to live with dignity. During apartheid, many worked for survival in the most literal sense. Their lives were disposable in a system that declared, implicitly and explicitly, that black lives did not matter. To compare the pace of infrastructure development across these two eras without acknowledging the ethical shift is to compare apples and chains.

So is freedom effective in building a country? The honest answer is yes, but not automatically. Democracy does not build roads on its own. It creates the space within which leaders and citizens must act responsibly. If leadership is driven by greed and self preservation, the promise of freedom will stall. If leadership is visionary, ethical and creative, freedom can unleash innovation on a scale apartheid could never have imagined. The rules of the game have changed. We can no longer rely on coercion and cheap labour to produce results. We must rely on skill, technology, accountability and a shared sense of purpose.

The challenge facing South Africa is not a lack of talent. Our universities produce engineers, teachers, doctors and entrepreneurs every year. Our young people are digitally savvy and globally connected. What we require is leadership that understands that the context has shifted dramatically. It is not enough to inherit the physical legacy of apartheid while ignoring the moral debt attached to it. We cannot maintain infrastructure by reproducing the injustices that built it. To do so would be to betray the very freedom we claim to celebrate.

As we commemorate Freedom Day, perhaps the more constructive question is not whether we are free, but how we choose to use our freedom. Freedom is not the absence of problems. It is the presence of possibility. It gives us the right to vote, to speak, to organise and to demand better. It also gives us the responsibility to hold leaders accountable and to become ethical leaders in our own spaces. The struggle of 1994 secured the political miracle. The struggle of today is to secure the economic and moral one, without ever losing sight of the human dignity that gave birth to our democracy.

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About the Author:

Mpho (MrSir) Matlhabegoane is a member of the ACTIVATE! Change Drivers Writers Hub. He became an Activator in 2019. He is a Mental Health Awareness Advocate, and to spread mental health awareness, he authored and published three books that are accepted by Gauteng Department of Education as of 2026, namely: The Story of MrSir (Word For The Record), Expanding The World Of Nerds, and Views and Emotions (Poetry Journal of MrSir).