Freedom Day ad provokes controversy

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The adverts were recently launched in the Sowetan newspaper and aired on a number of radio stations across the country. The full text of the print ad, which took inspiration from Dr Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a Dream” speech, is as follows:

I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up against each other and erupt into an oasis of crime, grime and home to racial attacks and injustice.

I have a dream that my children will be repeatedly raped, sodomised and left to fend for themselves long after HIV and AIDS have taken me away.

I have a dream today. I have a dream that every farmer shall be brutally murdered and every farm worker thrown into a lion’s den.

Let chaos ring from the streets of South Africa – and when this happens we will all join hands and sing: Free at last! Free at last! Thank god all mighty! We ‘are free at last!’

What have you done with your freedom South Africa? Don’t let it go to waste – cherish it.

This Freedom Day message sadly brought to you by Sowetan – the soul choice.

The intention, according to the newspaper, was to force individuals to take a step back and consciously think about the meaning of Freedom Day.

Comments Sowetan and Sunday World publisher Bongani Kheswa, “As Sowetan we feel that South Africa is ready to face the shocking truth of the adversities we went through to achieve our political freedom. Through this advert we would like to encourage people to celebrate this victory, but still keep in mind that the face of the struggle has now changed.

“I hope that every person who will be listening to this advert will do so with an open-mind and realise that there is a need for South Africa to regroup as a nation to fight these new challenges we are facing in an effort to make this country a better place for the next coming generations.”