JOHANNESBURG - Retired Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseni Madlanga has delivered a blunt audit of how South Africa is actually performing against the standards set by Oliver Tambo, saying the country has fallen short in practice, not merely in principle.
Speaking at the OR Tambo Memorial Lecture in Johannesburg on Friday evening, Madlanga posed a question he wanted the audience to sit with: have we lived up to what Tambo fought for, or have we betrayed his ideas, values, principles and convictions?
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His answer was direct. “South Africa has definitely betrayed Tambo,” he said, grounding that judgment in the high levels of gender-based violence across the country.
The lecture, structured around the theme “The Mirror, Map and Compass”, centred on ethical leadership, integrity and the enduring values Tambo left behind. But Madlanga repeatedly pulled the discussion away from abstract reflection and toward conditions on the ground.
He drew attention to the recent string of killings in Ekurhuleni, where more than 10 women were killed and bodies were discovered. Those killings, he suggested, were only the visible surface of a much broader and ongoing failure. “The reality is that even without such publicly witnessed waves, we live in the midst of the continuous physical violation and killing of women. This is happening in the face of the constitutional promise of freedom and security of the person,” he said.
That framing placed the constitution itself at the centre of the lecture, not as a document but as a promise whose delivery is being measured. In Madlanga’s telling, violent attacks and the murders of women and children are not what Tambo fought for, and the gap between the constitutional guarantee and lived reality is precisely where the betrayal lies.
The judgment was not only about violence. Madlanga also turned to how public institutions and public resources are being handled, holding up Tambo’s record as a working standard. He praised the struggle stalwart for his incorruptible and selfless character, noting that Tambo understood public resources are not there to amass personal wealth.
In his keynote address, Madlanga highlighted Tambo’s legacy of integrity and, in particular, his leadership in keeping the anti-apartheid movement united through difficult years.
The judge structured his assessment around three aspects of Tambo’s life and leadership, each of which doubles as a measure of how today’s leadership is performing. “I want to focus on three aspects of Tambo’s life and leadership. The first is selflessness, his willingness to subordinate his personal interests to a higher purpose. The second is fidelity, his capacity to remain faithful to that purpose even when there was no one watching closely enough to hold him to account,” Madlanga said.
“The third is intergenerational stewardship. His willingness to work for and protect a future whose benefits might be enjoyed by people he would never meet.”
Taken together, the three qualities describe a standard of execution rather than sentiment. Selflessness speaks to how those in office treat the power entrusted to them. Fidelity speaks to conduct when accountability is weak. Intergenerational stewardship speaks to whether today’s decisions protect the future or consume it.
Meanwhile, the lecture lands at a moment when questions of delivery and accountability are pressing. President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed that the Ekurhuleni murder cases will not go cold, an undertaking that places the burden of follow-through squarely on the institutions responsible for investigating and prosecuting them. Ramaphosa has also said the country’s people must never be held hostage by political instability, another statement whose value will be judged by what happens in practice.
Madlanga’s address, in the end, was less a commemoration than an audit. Set against the values Tambo embodied, the country’s record on violence against women and children, and its handling of public trust, was found wanting. Whether the constitutional promise of freedom and security of the person becomes a lived reality, rather than a paper commitment, will be the measure of whether that verdict can one day be reversed.