Freedom Day is an annual public holiday in South Africa to celebrate the anniversary of the country's first democratic election in 1994. The euphoria of that moment is now a distant memory. To many the promise of a truly democratic future marked out in the Freedom Charter of 1955, and even the less radical commitments of the new Constitution adopted in 1996, seem to have been betrayed.
From communities, to the mines and the factories, university campuses, and rural areas there is a deep sense that the promise of what was once called "the new South Africa" has been dashed. This often manifests in popular protest and the emergence of new forms of popular organisation outside the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
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