South Africa celebrates 20 years since apartheid

[LuckyTheDog]

South Africa on Sunday celebrates the 20th anniversary of its first ever all-race, democratic election that ended decades of sanctioned racial oppression under the apartheid system.

The day will be marked by street parades, speeches, prayers, music and military salutes and displays.

President Jacob Zuma leads the main festivities at the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria, where generations of apartheid leaders penned many of the racial laws that South Africa's first black leader Nelson Mandela fought most of his life.

After the historic April 27, 1994, the day has been retained as a holiday and named Freedom Day.

MORE HERE: http://wonkynewsnerd.com/south-africa-celebrates-20-years-since-apartheid/

[LittleBlue]

1. K&R! But we must remember

that while black South Africans may have gained their rights, wealth is almost as unequally distributed today as it was during Apartheid.

For the majority of black people who have lived under colonial rule for the best part of almost 400 years, five decades of which were under the guise of institutionalised racism, or apartheid, white privilege is still the barbed wire fence they must scale. Today, South Africa has the world's highest level of income inequality. And it is the black majority that still teeters precariously, at the bottom end of the scale. Ten per cent of the population controls 80% of the land.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/21/south-africa-white-privilege-afrikaner

[pampango]

2. The combination of economic/diplomatic sanctions and internal opposition effectively

doomed apartheid. That combination disposed of an entrenched apartheid system without any foreign military intervention.

The lesson is not that we should not care about people in other countries but that we should be smart and nonviolent in how we express our concern.