On Thursday, South Africans of all races celebrate the 29th anniversary of Freedom Day, a public holiday marking the country’s first democratic elections.
The day is mostly associated with the black majority who were disenfranchised under the apartheid regime. However, another minority group, Chinese South Africans, were also denied voting rights under apartheid. Marking Freedom Day, they remember the joy and excitement of the first time they were allowed to vote
Over a four-day period in April 1994, the world watched as millions of South Africans formed massive lines for their chance to make history. They were about to cast their ballots in the first elections in which all races were allowed to participate.
Prior to that, under the racist apartheid system, only members of South Africa’s white minority could vote, disenfranchising not only the Black majority but all other non-whites, including the country’s small Chinese population.
Sixty-four-year-old Francis Lai Hong, vice chairman of the Chinese Association in Johannesburg, told VOA he had stood in line for hours at a school hall to cast his vote.
“I can remember quite fondly, as though it were yesterday, the first time we were allowed to vote in South Africa, he said. “The Chinese have been here for almost 300, 400 years and this was the first time we were able to vote in our own country.”
The very first Chinese came to South Africa as convicts in the 17th century, followed by indentured laborers in the 19th century. In the late 1880s Chinese started migrating to the country as part of the “gold rush,” only to find they were banned from mining. Other barriers in place because of their race affected their ability to trade.
Under the apartheid system that began in 1948, the Chinese were classified as a sub-group of the “colored group,” a racial categorization that lumped together anyone who wasn’t black or white.
The electric atmosphere of the day he could finally vote 29 years ago is ingrained in Hong’s mind.
“I can remember the camaraderie and the good-naturedness of the people of the other races who had also never been able to vote before, who were standing in the queue and everybody was so filled with joy and anticipation and expectation and hopefulness of a new South Africa and a new democracy and perhaps a new future, a bright new future for all of us,” he said.
Retiree Vernon Hong, no relation to Francis, is the son of immigrants from China’s Guangdong province. His father was a stowaway on a ship to South Africa in the 1950s and his mother came via Macau through Mozambique and on to Johannesburg. He was 27 when he went to vote for the first time.
“It was quite an exciting experience for me that I’ve now been given the privilege of voting for the new government,” he said.
That’s how Vernon Hong felt at the time, though he has since become disappointed with the route his country has taken, with the government plagued by corruption and South Africa experiencing high levels of unemployment.
Jackie Lai, whose grandmother immigrated to South Africa, grew up in Eastern Cape province in a town with just five Chinese families. Now she works in human resources.
She was in her late twenties and traveling in Europe when the first elections were held, but still made a point of casting her absentee ballot.
“I went on my own on the train to London and walked down to Trafalgar Square and stood in the queue, and it was a strange feeling to be standing in London, realizing that this was potentially the first time that I was going to be able to vote,” she said.
Lai said she always remembers this now when she votes and appreciates what a privilege it is.
“I think that part of the voting was part of an acknowledgement that we were part of a country and we could contribute equally to that country where we’d actually settled,” she said.
Things have changed a lot for the Chinese here since the dark days of the apartheid era. Now, as well as having the vote, a handful of Chinese South Africans have even run for office in the democratic “Rainbow Nation.”
