ADDRESS BY YAA ASHANTEEWAA ARCHER-NGIDI
TO THE CIVIL SOCIETY UNMUTED COALITION
28 MAY 2026
THEME: “FROM LIBERATION TO INEQUALITY: SOUTH AFRICA’S HISTORICAL STRUGGLE AND THE REALITY OF TODAY”
Programme Director,
Leadership of the Civil Society Unmuted Coalition,
Distinguished guests, activists, young leaders, members of civil society, comrades and fellow Africans:
It is both an honour and a responsibility to stand before you today as we engage a theme that is deeply emotional, political, historical, and profoundly urgent: “From Liberation to Inequality: South Africa’s Historical Struggle and the Reality of Today.”
We gather not merely to remember history, but to interrogate it.
Not merely to celebrate liberation, but to ask difficult questions about what liberation has truly meant for the ordinary African child, worker, woman, and youth.
For many Africans, political freedom arrived with songs of victory, raised fists, and the lowering of colonial flags. Yet decades later, millions still wake up trapped in poverty, unemployment, violence, landlessness, economic exclusion, and identity crises.
Maybe first let me speak directly about the present and existential danger of what is seen correctly as xenophobic marches in South africa.
The organizers can't light a fire and turn their backs, and then pretend they have nothing to do with the deaths and destruction that will surely follow these marches.
All of us must confront the danger that xenophobic marches and inflammatory rhetoric pose in South Africa. While public frustration over unemployment, crime, corruption, and failed governance is real — that anger cannot.and shouldn't be directed toward foreign nationals as a group. This creates conditions where intimidation, mob violence, and vigilantism can quickly take root.
History in South Africa has already shown how quickly tensions can spiral into deadly attacks, looting, displacement, and retaliation. Organizers of marches cannot ignite public outrage with reckless messaging, and then distance themselves when violence follows.
Leaders who encourage hostility, dehumanization, or collective blame cannot credibly claim innocence if vulnerable people are attacked afterwards.
Vigilantism replaces law, evidence, and due process with fear and mob psychology.
We saw when out of the 300 immigrants at Diakonia Durban, only 2 were found by Home Affairs to be illegal. In other words the marchers are chasing legal immigrants.
The danger is that once communities normalize “taking justice into their own hands,” everyone becomes less safe — including South Africans themselves. Innocent people are targeted, rumours become death sentences, and criminal elements exploit the chaos.
There is a difference between demanding stronger border control, immigration reform, and accountable governance — which are legitimate political issues — and promoting rhetoric that fuels hatred against entire communities.
Responsible leadership.
South Africa’s challenges will not be solved by using the grievances of poor and desperate people against one another. Sustainable solutions come from effective policing, economic opportunity, functioning institutions, anti-corruption measures, and policies grounded in human dignity and constitutional rights for all who live in the country.
This sad reality forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth:
Political liberation without economic justice remains incomplete liberation.
South Africa’s democratic breakthrough came in 1994, but today, many young South Africans born after liberation ask painful questions:
If we are free, why are so many still poor?
If we are democratic, why does inequality continue to deepen?
Why do townships remain underdeveloped while wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a few?
Why does violence continue to consume our communities?
Why are African migrants attacked in African streets?
Why do many young people feel disconnected from their own identity, history, and purpose?
To answer these questions honestly, we must understand that the systems of colonialism and apartheid were never designed merely to control land — they were designed to control the African mind, economy, labour, movement, and identity.
Colonialism extracted African wealth while destroying African systems of governance, spirituality, education, and social cohesion. Apartheid perfected racial capitalism by institutionalising inequality and spatial exclusion. And even after formal liberation, neo-colonial systems continued through global economic structures that keep African countries dependent, indebted, and externally controlled.
Today, inequality in South Africa is not accidental — it is historical. Poverty is not a personal failure — it is systemic. Violence is not simply criminality — it is often the consequence of social despair, exclusion, and broken communities.
As Africans, we must, therefore, resist the temptation to discuss present realities without historical context.
History matters.
The land question matters.
Economic justice matters.
Access to quality education matters.
Ownership of resources matters.
Cultural identity matters.
African dignity matters.
As Africans we must define ourselves outside colonial frameworks. It is the courage to believe that African solutions can solve African problems. It is the reclaiming of our languages, knowledge systems, histories, and humanity.
Great African thinkers and leaders understood this deeply.
Kwame Nkrumah warned us about neo-colonialism and the dangers of political independence without economic control.
Thomas Sankara taught Africa about integrity, self-reliance, and revolutionary leadership rooted in the people.
Julius Nyerere emphasised education for liberation and collective social development.
Steve Biko challenged psychological oppression and called for Black Consciousness as a tool of mental liberation.
And today, many young Africans are drawn to emerging leaders such as Ibrahim Traoré because they represent a renewed hunger for sovereignty, African pride, accountability, and resistance to foreign domination.
Young Africans are searching for courageous leadership. They are searching for leaders who speak directly to African dignity, economic justice, and self-determination.
Rightly, young people are tired of symbolic freedom without material change.
They want ethical leadership, jobs, safety.
They want land and opportunity.
They want an Africa that belongs to Africans.
They want to participate meaningfully in shaping the future.
Decolonised education is important.
An education system that alienates African children from their history, languages, and identity cannot fully liberate them. True education must empower critical thinking, creativity, innovation, historical consciousness, and social responsibility.
We must teach our children about African civilizations, African intellectual traditions, African resistance movements, and African excellence. We must produce graduates who understand both technology and humanity, both economics and ethics, both innovation and justice.
The future of Africa will only be built by minds that are not disconnected.
Transformation requires active citizens, organised communities, ethical leadership, courageous activism, and solidarity across sectors.
Civil society must continue to speak truth to power, defend democracy while demanding economic justice.
It must challenge corruption, gender-based violence, xenophobia, inequality, and exploitation.
It must amplify the voices of the poor, the marginalised, and the forgotten.
Most importantly, civil society must help rebuild social cohesion and Pan-African solidarity across all nations and our people here and abroad.
Today, South Africa must stand with Africa.
The future demands a new generation of Pan-Africanists — not merely in rhetoric, but in action. A generation committed to justice, ethical leadership, innovation, environmental sustainability, social transformation, and African unity.
To the young people here today:
Every generation inherits unfinished struggles. Ours is the struggle to transform political freedom into social and economic justice. Yours is the generation that must redefine leadership, challenge corruption, dismantle inequality, and build an Africa that is conscious, compassionate, innovative, and united.
Your past is linked to Africa. Your future is linked to Africa.
As I conclude, let us remember:
Liberation was not the destination.
It was the beginning.
And yet, despite the challenges before us, I remain hopeful because across Africa, a new consciousness is rising.
May we continue building an Africa rooted in justice, in dignity, in consciousness, in unity and in continent wide prosperity.
I thank you.