Freedom: Interracial pairs like Evans and Hlaodi are no longer taboo
Posted Sunday, April 11, 2004; 2.15BST
Mapisto Hlaodi and Ray Evans are in love, and don't care who knows it. In the apartheid era, interracial relationships were barred. They are still rare: older folks stare when Hlaodi, 23, a black hairdresser, and Evans, 26, a white mobile-phone shopworker, go out together in Johannesburg. But 14 months into their relationship, Hlaodi marvels at the fact that they can go out at all. "Fifteen years ago I would have been arrested or something," she says. "Now people, young people especially, are more cool about it."
As national confidence grows, South Africa is finally taking its rightful place in the world. The stench of apartheid had forced the country into virtual isolation. Today, free, democratic and one of the 25 biggest economies in the world, it is taken far more seriously. Within Africa, Mbeki has styled himself as a leader to remake the continent, while further afield, South Africa is now a powerful player among developing nations. Together with Brazil and India it has forged a formidable southern alliance that aims to keep rich countries honest in trade talks and at bodies like the United Nations. By drawing on its past, South Africa can make a difference in the world. "That's why I like living here," says Mpho Makwana, CEO of the Marketing Federation of Southern Africa. "This is one part of the world where you can make history rather than just read about it."
South Africa has always been a land of epic journeys. Black Africans migrated south across the continent's vast plains two millenniums ago. White settlers trekked north into the South African veld in the 18th century. Mandela, whose odyssey took him from prison cell to President's office, called his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom . "We have not taken the final step of our journey," he wrote toward the end of his book, "but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road." Ten years after the euphoria of liberation, the journeys ahead are personal as well as epic. Businessman Mthunzi Mdwaba likes to talk about a school project his son Litha, 9, recently completed. Litha had to write a letter to himself in 20 years' time. What had he achieved? What sort of person did he want to be? In his letter, Litha imagined he had finished school and university. "I want to make my parents proud and start my own company," he wrote. "I want to be a big success." "That's the miracle," says Mdwaba. "That I never dreamed of doing what I did, but it would never occur to my son that he can't."
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