People say you can’t eat freedom. This is true. When you are ”free” but have nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep and no clothes to wear, freedom means very little.
But does having food, a home and clothes, make you truly free?
When I was a child, I couldn’t imagine that I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted simply because my skin isn’t white. Fortunately I grew up in an environment where I didn’t even know I wasn’t entitled to the big dreams I had.
I am not quite of the born-free generation. I was born in 1979 and, thanks to living my first 10 years in the most remote part of South Africa — Namaqualand — I was shielded from experiencing the true harshness of apartheid.
I don’t have a store of memories to dish out at appropriate occasions showing how all my dreams and ideals were dashed by that stupid system called apartheid.
It never made any sense to me. To have someone put limits on what I wanted to do with my life was not an option that I allowed anyone around me to entertain, least of all a group of balding men in a place called Pretoria, which I only read about in books. My parents liked travelling, but the former Transvaal was never a destination on our roadmaps.
From early childhood I always wanted to know why I needed to follow certain rules. I never found parental reasoning that began and ended with ”because I said so” very constructive and for the most part my parents agreed.
So I literally didn’t understand when a man at a ticket office in Knysna told me I wasn’t allowed to use the super-tube, a massive waterslide that I believed was the most fun an eight-year-old could have.
”No boys allowed”, I thought I heard him say.
”What?” I asked incredulously, wondering what made boys so special.
”No coloureds allowed,” I finally heard him correctly.
Deflated and very confused I walked back to the car where my parents were waiting. I told them what the man said and my dad got out of the car and gave the guy a piece of his mind.
Last week in Harare was the first time since then that I felt similarly confused.
For a journalist, Zimbabwe is not the most welcoming of places. But no matter all the horror stories my friends told me about what the police there could do to journalists, I could never quite believe it. Not because I didn’t think they were capable of doing it, I just couldn’t see why. It was truly a blind spot for me.
Perhaps it comes from being raised by parents who would’ve let me become an astronaut if I’d felt that was my calling. They would have looked past my poor maths marks and applauded my moonwalking attempts on our front lawn.
Not once did my mother egg me on to become a teacher or a nurse, the only professional careers that the apartheid government allowed coloured women to follow. Not once was it suggested that I might not get accepted into the university of my choice, based on the colour of my skin. In fact, in my future there were no limits — I could go wherever my poor maths marks or my good English marks — would take me.
In 1992, the year I began high school, all schools were opened to black and coloured learners. Now we could also feel what it was like to attend a school with more rugby fields, tennis courts and library books than they knew what to do with.
I chose the Paarl Gymnasium, arguably one of the most traditional, conservative and staunchly white Afrikaner schools in the region. As one of the first coloured learners to be admitted, I was interviewed and tested to ensure that I’d cope with the so-called higher standard of education on offer.
Convincing my father of my choice, I knew, would be my greatest obstacle. So I presented him with a well-researched business plan.
Academically the school was strong (more A candidates than any other in the area), it seemed to do well in cultural events — public speaking, music and languages — and it enjoyed a reputation for all-round excellence.
My dad made a counter-offer — the local girls’ school, La Rochelle. In the most serious tone my 12-year-old self could muster I explained that, living in a household of mostly women, it would be better if I went to a co-ed school. That settled it; the next day we were off to buy the bright yellow Paarl Gymnasium school dresses that ended below the knee.
Today I know the mere thought of not having the freedom to choose where I would get my education would have rendered me helpless.
So perhaps for some people those rights enshrined in our Constitution are mere paper rights. For me they underscore everything I do. They give me the right to celeÂbrate my choices when they turn out to be right, and to take responsibility for the ones that go wrong.
If I had enough to eat, a warm place to sleep and a pair of jeans to wear, I still wouldn’t be truly happy without the freedom to choose what I would eat, where I would sleep and what I would wear.