Kenny Morolong wants South Africans to hear the freedom stories nobody tells

Deputy Minister in The Presidency Kenny Morolong has made a public call for South Africans to hear the liberation stories that he says go untold, and to remember the people who paid for the country’s freedom.

The Presidency put the call out on Tuesday through the government’s account on X, promoting a recorded reflection by Morolong on the struggle and on the sacrifices made for it. The post named Joyce Mashamba among those whose contribution it wants remembered, and carried the tag MilestonesOfFreedom.

The material released does not set out a policy, a programme or a new commitment. It is a broadcast in which the deputy minister speaks about the country’s history, and the government’s own framing of it is that these are important stories worth hearing.

Mashamba’s name is the concrete part of it. She was a liberation figure with a long record in the ANC and in Limpopo politics, and the government’s post places her among the people whose sacrifices it says the country should not lose.

What the broadcast itself argues, beyond that, is not carried in the post. Anyone wanting Morolong’s account of the struggle, and of the people he names in it, will have to watch it.