30 years after end of apartheid, South Africa’s celebrations are set against growing discontent

A child kicks a football in front of a mural of Nelson Mandela, in Soweto, South Africa, as the country celebrates Freedom Day on April 27, 2024. | APand the birth of its democracy with a ceremony in the capital Saturday that included a 21-gun salute and the waving of the nation’s multicolored flag.

He also spoke as the leader of the African National Congress party, which was widely credited with liberating South Africa’s Black majority from the racist system of oppression that made the country a pariah for nearly a half-century. “Few days in the life of our nation can compare to that day, when freedom was born,” Ramaphosa said in a speech centered on the nostalgia of 1994, when Black people were allowed to vote for the first time, the once-banned ANC swept to power, and Mandela became the country’s first Black president. “South Africa changed forever. It signaled a new chapter in the history of our nation, a moment that resonated across Africa and across the world.

The official unemployment rate is 32%, the highest in the world, and more than 60% for young people between the ages of 15 and 24. More than 16 million South Africans — 25% of the country — rely on monthly welfare grants for survival. In the week leading up to the anniversary, countless South Africans were asked what 30 years of freedom from apartheid meant to them. The dominant response was that while 1994 was a landmark moment, it’s now overshadowed by the joblessness, violent crime, corruption and near-collapse of basic services like electricity and water that plagues South Africa in 2024.

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