Seventy years after the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown, South Africa still lives with its promises unmet. In this powerful reflection, Ayesha Binkowski of the People’s Movement for Change (PMC) calls on us to stop reciting the Charter like a history lesson — and start living it like a revolution.
Seventy years ago, in the dusty open air of Kliptown, ordinary South Africans — workers, women, youth, elders — stood shoulder to shoulder and imagined the impossible: a South Africa that belonged to all who live in it.
They weren’t politicians. They weren’t billionaires. They were the people. And what they gave us that day was the Freedom Charter — a powerful, fearless document that still holds the blueprint for a just society.
Today, we mark 70 years since that moment. But let’s be honest — we are still far from the country they dreamed of.
The Charter Promised: “The People Shall Govern”
But too many of our people are still governed by hunger, by corruption, by joblessness — not by themselves. We vote, yes. But after elections, we are forgotten.
In our communities, democracy feels like something that lives on posters, not on our streets.
It Said: “The Land Shall Be Shared Among Those Who Work It”
But who owns the land in your area? In mine, it’s not the families who’ve lived here for generations. It’s not the backyarders. It’s not the subsistence farmers.
Instead, we’re watching malls rise while kids sleep hungry. We see fenced-off plots while mothers raise families in one-room shacks.
The Charter didn’t say: “The land shall be a private commodity.” It said shared. Fair. Just.
“The Wealth Shall Be Shared Among All the People”
Today, wealth in South Africa is still white, still male, still inherited.
Meanwhile, we are chasing NSFAS approvals, skipping meals to stretch a grant, trying to start businesses with nothing but data and dreams.
Imagine if the Freedom Charter was actually put into practice.
Imagine if every community had land to build, schools that lifted children up, clinics with real care, safety from gangsterism, jobs with dignity — not desperation.
This is what we mean when we say: Re-Imagine the Freedom Charter.
At the People’s Movement for Change, we’re not here to host memorials for a document that’s been buried by broken promises. We’re here to dig it up, dust it off, and demand that it be lived.
Our President, MariusL Fransman, put it best:
“The Freedom Charter was not a suggestion — it was a command from the people. We don’t need a ceremony. We need a revolution of delivery.”
This is not about the past — this is about our right to a future.
We Need a People’s Charter for Right Now
Let’s not leave the Charter to the textbooks. Let’s take it to the taxis. To the school gates. To WhatsApp groups. To community halls.
Let’s ask our elders what the Freedom Charter meant to them. Let’s ask our youth what they want it to mean now.
Let’s not just remember the Charter. Let’s reclaim it.
Join us in this fight.
Let’s rewrite the future our parents were promised.
Let’s Re-Imagine the Freedom Charter — and let’s finally, fully live it.
The Freedom Charter is not dead — it was hijacked.
PMC is here to take it back.
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