Programme Director;
The Tambo Family;
Minister of Arts and Culture, Paul Mashatile;
Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, Ngoako Ramatlhodi
Premier of Gauteng, Nomvula Mokonyane;
Mayor of Ekurhuleni, Mondli Ngungubele;
Religious Leaders led by Bishop of the Anglican Church;
Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Executive Official of the Adelaide and OR Tambo Foundation;
Distinguished guest;
Ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you for inviting me to the opening of the OR Tambo National Heritage Site, meant to pay tribute to the towering memory of our revered former President, Oliver Reginald Tambo, and his wife and comrade in struggle, Mama Adelaide Tambo.
Comrade President OR, as he was affectionately known, was a servant of the people who gave his all for our liberation struggle, serving for the longest period as the President-General, commander-in-chief, as well as ambassador plenipotentiary of the ANC and the people of South Africa for most his adult life.
Celebrating the legacy of OR Tambo this year is especially memorable given that this year marks the centenary of the African National Congress (ANC)’s existence. Over the past 18 years the democratic state has put in place numerous programmes to meet the goals of reconstruction and development. We have had the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), Gear, Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), the New Growth Path and the National Development Plan, all of which were designed to give effect to the aspirations of the Freedom Charter.
As we take this moment to pay homage to his memory, we should always remember that the struggle he lived for is neither over nor nearer to its conclusion.
22 years ago today, in a message to the ANC Youth League Rally, OR stated, somewhat prophetically, (and I quote): ‘our victories have opened up new terrain of struggle; a front as full of possibilities for swift and decisive advances as it is laden with the chances of reversals. We are therefore burdened with much more complex tasks than ever before...’
Indeed these prophetic thoughts only go to show the timeless vision OR commanded. South Africa today, no less than at the time OR made these warnings, faces complex tasks, not least unemployment, inequality and poverty, as well as consolidating unity, non-racialism, non-sexism and striving for prosperity.
If not properly handled, these complex tasks that OR warned us about are likely to lead to reversals. We therefore need to work harder to keep at bay any threats that my undo the work of many years of struggle to bring about national reconstruction, peace, stability and social cohesion, among others.
As the current generation, we are privileged to have had as our mentors, source of inspiration and fountain of wisdom, leaders of the calibre of OR Tambo and his generation. Their determination to stay the course, even in the face of seemingly intractable and insurmountable odds, leaves us with eminently suitable referent points.
Programme Director,
It is indeed commendable that the Department of Arts and Culture has decided to honour OR’s and Adelaide Tambo’s final resting place in this way. We must do this work to honour those whose contributions have changed the social, economic and political face of our nation, and to immortalise the values and principles of those whose stood for a free and united South Africa.
We therefore take this opportunity to thank the Adelaide and OR Tambo Foundation, the Ekurhuleni Metro, civil society organisations and all other municipalities in the country who continue to preserve the legacy of OR Tambo.
Indeed this noble exercise should not end here but continue to see many other great South Africans, regardless party political affiliation, memorialised and honoured.
Such memorialised sites must also serve as symbols of reconciliation, nation building and national healing and helping us to craft a new and inclusive narrative for our country — a narrative reflective of our common heritage and most importantly our shared future.
Programme director;
By all accounts OR was an internationalist who forged and developed lasting relationships, at party to party level as well as people to people level.
In many ways OR Tambo’s life and work personified solidarity and his life was an exemplar of International Solidarity. This vision accounted for the unprecedented international support the ANC received during the dark days of exile.
His life symbolised the value of the multi-lateral system where all nations enjoy equal treatment and where nations are absorbed in the key task of creating a better world free of strife, hunger and inequalities. Today, the world would do well to take a leaf from the book of humanists such as OR Tambo in striving to improve the lot of humanity.
Accordingly, we are proud that today a free South Africa continues to support the struggle for a better world grounded in human solidarity and defined by justice, equality and human dignity.
Programme Director,
With the above in mind, we feel justified to contend that this historic work, the monument we are unveiling here today, will go a long way to etch in national psyche the adorable life of OR Tambo.
Down the years and long after those of us who were his contemporaries have departed the world of the living, this site will continue to ring out with OR Tambo’s awe-inspiring internationalism, solidarity, justice, freedom and the desire to cherish, preserve and if needs be pay the supreme price for our common humanity
It will remain a shining testimony of our nation’s reconciliation, social cohesion, nation building as well as reconstruction and development.
In the aura of its silence, it will exhort the coming generations to learn to respect unity, selflessness, service, humility, honesty, hard work, discipline and mutual respect.
Ladies and gentlemen;
It is on occasions like this that we necessarily have to remember that our struggle drew overwhelming support from men and women outside the borders of our country.
In keeping with this spirit of internationalism, yesterday His Excellency President Jacob Zuma hosted the National Orders ceremony to bestow the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo on some of our friends and allies from outside our borders. The recipients came from as far flung countries as Nigeria, Scotland, Italy, India, Cuba and Cyprus.
We are also working with other countries to map out our Liberation Heritage Route such as the Matola Raid Memorial in Mozambique, in memory of the martyrs killed by the South African Defence Force in a cross-border raid in Mozambique in 1981.
In conclusion, once again let us heed the prescient words of President OR Tambo that: (I quote again) ‘our victories have opened up new terrain of struggle; a front as full of possibilities for swift and decisive advances as it is laden with the chances of reversals. We are therefore burdened with much more complex tasks than ever before...’
I trust that this memorial site will enable us to follow Maya Angelo’s admonition that ‘nothing will work unless you do’.
I thank you.
