A visit to some of the places that played a part in the struggle for liberation is a fine way of spending Freedom Day and celebrating how far the country has come.
Nelson Mandela’s Soweto home is now a museum
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RESH from voting in South Africa's most recent elections, citizens can now celebrate Freedom Day, on Monday, 27 April.
The day was set aside as a public holiday to mark the first democratic elections, held on 27 April in 1994.
Visiting areas significant to the liberation struggle is one way of marking the occasion. Johannesburg has a large number of such sites. One such landmark is Soweto, around which one can take half-day and full-day tours.
Places of interest include Kliptown, home of Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication. It was here, on 26 June 1955, that 3 000 representatives of anti-apartheid organisations gathered to draw up the Freedom Charter. Today's Constitution is based on that historic document.
Participating organisations included the African National Congress, the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats and the Coloured People's Congress, who together formed the Congress of the People.
Hector Pieterson Museum
In Orlando West is the Hector Pieterson Museum, a reminder of the 16 June 1976 uprising and the death of one of the first children killed that day
Over in Orlando West is the Hector Pieterson Museum, just two blocks away from where Hector was shot and killed by apartheid police. One of the first museums in Soweto, it opened on 16 June 2002. Hector, aged 13, was one of the first children killed during the June 16, 1976 uprising in Soweto.
A peaceful protest march had been organised by school learners in Soweto against the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in black schools. The marching learners were confronted by police, who fired on them. This sparked violent protests around the country, and built support for the anti-apartheid movement abroad.
Mandela House makes an interesting stop. It was here that a young Nelson Mandela, the world icon and the country's first democratic president, lived with his family. The house is number 8115 Vilakazi Street, Orlando West. The Mandela family lived in this house from 1946 to the 1990s.
On 1 September 1997, it was donated to the Soweto Heritage Trust, a partnership project between the City of Joburg, the Standard Bank Group and the Gauteng department of sports, arts, culture and recreation, which manages it.
More or less the same amount of people - 360 - are expected to visit the house on Freedom Day as visited on Human Rights Day in March, says Ishmael Mbhokodo, the site manager.
Constitution Hill
The Constitutional Court, the protector of citizens’ basic rights and freedom
Constitution Hill is home to another significant landmark that is a symbol of the country's democracy. Here one can visit the Constitutional Court, which is the protector of citizens' basic rights and freedom. The hill is also the site of Joburg's notorious Old Fort prison complex, where thousands of anti-apartheid activists were imprisoned alongside common criminals. Conditions at the prison were harsh, remembered in the permanent exhibitions at the site.
Downtown is Gandhi Square, built in memory of a man who left his gentle footprint in and around Joburg. He lived on Albermarle Street, in Troyeville, with his family in the early 1900s. It was Victory House in the CBD, where he was refused entry to the city's first lift. Gandhi himself served two terms of several months each at Old Fort in 1908.
In early 1906, he had led the Indian community in acts of passive protest. In later years the Indian, black and progressive thinking white communities used passive resistance campaigns to help bring down apartheid.
The memorial to Gandhi in downtown Joburg
Gandhi believed in the effectiveness of what he called the "soul force" in passive resistance, maintaining that the suffering experienced by resisters inspired a change in the hearts of the rulers. He refined this philosophy, Satyagraha, through his 20-year struggle against racialism in South Africa, eventually using to great effect in his home country of India, then a British colony.
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