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South Africa is one of the most
geographically varied countries on the African continent, comprising territory that ranges from the rolling, fertile plains of the highveld and the wide-open savannah of Mpumalanga to the Kalahari desert and the peaks of the Drakensberg Mountains.
In addition to possessing two of the world's most renowned wildlife reserves, the Kruger and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, the country contains over a dozen smaller regional parks and reserves. With its excellent road and rail systems, its abundance of top-rated accommodation, and its bountiful farmlands, vineyards, and pristine beaches, South Africa truly offers "a world in one country".

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A freedom fighter is a person engaged in a resistance movement against what they believe to be an oppressive and illegitimate government.

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This year, South Africa will celebrate 28 years of democracy, and as a younger generation, none of us can deny the validity of the statement, “I am my ancestors' wildest dreams” — a quote that gained noteriety after film director Ava Duvernay wore it on a t-shirt five years ago.

While the country still suffers many inequalities, the division of race does not define the nation as strongly as it did throughout the apartheid era, and there are so many incredible leaders to thank for that. There were many freedom fighters involved in creating the united republic we live in today, including former president Nelson Mandela, leader of the Black Consciousness movement Steve Biko, mother of the nation Winnie Madikizela Mandela, and former president of the African National Congress Oliver Tambo, to name a few.

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As South Africa celebrates Freedom Day on April 27, most see it both as a welcome holiday and as a time to reflect back on the day in 1994 when South Africans of all colour cast their votes in the country’s first free and democratic elections. We take a look at some of the freedom fighters who died at the hands of an unjust and inhuman apartheid state without ever experiencing the free South Africa they fought so hard for.
1.Steve Biko
2.Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge
3.Hector Pieterson
4.David Webster
5.Neil Aggett

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Although more than 40 years have passed since Stephen Bantu Biko’s death, his influence on South African history remains profound, and he stands as one of the most thought-provoking and popular anti-apartheid activists to have fought for the liberation of the country.

Biko had a deep, philosophical outlook on life and believed that the emancipation of the mind was necessary before political freedom could be attained. As the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, he took the organization from one of student discontent into a political force that was unprecedented in the history of South Africa.

By 1973, the apartheid regime had banned Biko from writing or speaking publicly, talking to journalists, or (bizarrely) speaking to more than one person at a time. This did not deter Biko, who continued his freedom fight underground. His death, by police torture, was cruel and prolonged, with South African security forces attempting to pass it off as a hunger strike or suicide.

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The Mxenges were well-known civil-rights lawyers who took up the cases of political freedom fighters across all political parties, and fought for youths who had been mistreated during imprisonment. As intelligent, well-educated people they were seen as great threats by the apartheid government.

Griffiths was convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act and sent to Robben Island after having been detained by police for 190 days. He survived his incarceration and continued his fight for South Africa’s freedom until 1981, when he was abducted, stabbed, and hammered to death. Victoria was murdered four years later in the driveway of her home, and her children witnessed the attack.

In 2006, Victoria Mxenge was posthumously awarded the Order of Luthuli in Silver for her excellent contribution to the field of law and sacrifices made in the fight against apartheid and oppression in South Africa.

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The image of a dying 12-year-old Hector Pieterson being carried by a crying youth during the Soweto uprising in 1976 shocked the world, and still stands as a stark reminder of South Africa’s apartheid legacy.

He was a child with no political affiliation, who joined an initially peaceful crowd in protest against the Bantu Education Act. The poignant and deeply telling photograph that captured his last moments has been reproduced thousands of times across the globe in memory of his unjust and untimely death. The boy holding Hector, Mbuyisa Makhubo, was so harassed by security police after the photo was published that he fled South Africa, and it’s thought that his family never saw him again.

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With a deep interest in anthropology, Rhodesian-born Webster first took a stand against apartheid by joining a peaceful sit-in at Rhodes University in protest against black students’ exclusion from the university’s rugby team. Later, as a lecturer at Wits University, his research led him to the subject of the psychological trauma and torture used on detainees by the South African security forces during interrogation.

Together with his partner, Webster authored a report that exposed the intensifying state repression and how liberation movements were finding new and creative methods of resistance. Webster was murdered by apartheid assassin Ferdi Barnard, just nine months before Nelson Mandela’s release from prison.

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At 28 years old, Neil Aggett was the first white South African to die at the hands of South Africa’s security police. As a doctor who worked mostly in overcrowded black appointed hospitals, he was acutely aware of the hardships and poverty-related diseases of workers, and soon became involved in trade unions that were working to champion worker rights. As a result, he became a target of harassment by the Security Branch of the South African Police and was labelled a communist.

His death in 1982 was called suicide, but 16 years later, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission ruled that being assaulted, blindfolded and given electric shocks for more than 70 days in detention was directly responsible for Aggett taking his own life.

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Made By: Niyati Jaiswal,9th F
AIL Presentation
Group 3