South Africa proudly celebrated Day of Reconciliation on Dec 16

South Africa celebrated the Day of Reconciliation on Sunday, December 16. The first time the Day of Reconciliation was celebrated as a public holiday was in 1995. This is the day South Africans celebrate unity and the end of oppressive era for decades (called apartheid).

The holiday came into effect in 1994 after the end of apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s.

The founding date of Umkhonto We Sizwe also falls on the same date. Umkhonto We Sizwe was the armed wing of the African National Congress, co-founded by South Africa’s first President Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre.

“We have, in real life, declared our shared allegiance to justice, non-racialism and democracy; our yearning for a peaceful and harmonious nation of equals,” these words were spoken by Nelson Mandela during the first celebration of Day of Reconciliation.

Cultural groups participated in parades and various festivities take place through South Africa on the Day of Reconciliation. A statue of the anti-apartheid revolutionary, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated in Pretoria in 2013 on this day.