May 25th has some real weight to it in our history, from continental dreams to moments that changed how South Africa sat in the world.
1963: The Organisation of African Unity was founded in Addis Ababa on this day, and South Africa’s story is quietly wrapped up in that moment even though we weren’t at the table. The OAU was born partly because of apartheid South Africa, with newly independent African states wanting a unified voice against colonialism and white minority rule. Member states pledged support for liberation movements across the continent, and that included the ANC operating in exile. It’s one of those things where you realise the struggle here didn’t happen in isolation, it echoed across the whole continent.
1910: Just weeks before Union on 31 May, the political maneuvering in late May 1910 was intense, with Louis Botha confirmed as the first Prime Minister of the soon to be unified South Africa. Botha was a fascinating figure, a Boer War general who’d fought the British and then turned around and built a political future working alongside them. Whether you see that as pragmatism or compromise probably says something about where you stand on that whole era. Either way, the man who would lead this new country was someone who’d lived through the war that made union possible in the first place.
1994: South Africa took its seat in the United Nations General Assembly on 25 May 1994, just weeks after the historic April elections. We’d been suspended from the UN back in 1974 because of apartheid, so this was a genuine return, not just a formality. I find it genuinely moving when I think about it, because after decades of isolation, sanctions, and being treated as a pariah state, South Africa walked back into the community of nations as a democracy. Nelson Mandela addressed the General Assembly and the reception he got was extraordinary.
Three very different moments, but they all circle around the same question of where South Africa belongs in the world and who gets to decide that. From being the reason a continental organisation formed, to being shut out of the UN, to walking back in with our heads held high, it’s quite a journey for one country.
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