Dear Parents
FREEDOM DAY
I am not sure how many thought about Wednesday’s public holiday and the dawn of democracy 28 years ago. Our television channels all covered the President’s address in Mpumulanga where he spoke on the significance of Freedom Day, reflecting on how far we have come since then. Many people were interviewed about their reminiscences of 1994, the first democratic election and the inauguration of the first democratically elected President in the person of Nelson Mandela.
Quite coincidentally our Grade 7 group, together with six staff, have spent the last two days on Robben Island, sleeping over in large dormitories. The timing could not have been better as they tour the island, see Nelson Mandela’s cell, the quarry where he and other prisoners spent many years working, play in the prisoners’ exercise yard, learn about the history of the island and learn more about the politics and times that led to the incarceration of political prisoners on the island.
As they experience the space that a number of South Africans spent many years in, sacrificing family and ordinary life, all in order to achieve the fundamental change in South African society that the events of 1994 heralded, they will no doubt be amazed at the tenacity and heroism of these fighters for freedom. Many never lived to see the freedom. I think they will also ask questions about South Africans’ freedom. Where does abject poverty, illiteracy, severe unemployment and a chronic lack of housing fit into a free society? We look forward to their sharing their experiences and thoughts with the rest of the school next week.
The words of Nelson Mandela at the end of his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, published at the end of 1994, ring true and talk to us today:
“The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step on our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.”
I wish you all (another) very good long weekend. We have chess and U13 rugby fixtures this afternoon and next week will see a full programme through to Saturday.
To our Muslim families we wish you Eid Mubarak. May it be a time of special celebration and happiness with family and friends.
Kind regards
GREG BROWN
HEADMASTER |
