At Tamboville Cemetery in Wattville, Ekurhuleni, visitors come each October to the graveside of Oliver Reginald Tambo. This year, Deputy President Paul Mashatile told those gathered at the wreath-laying ceremony on 27 October that the man buried there deserves more than an annual act of remembrance. The truest tribute to the liberation stalwart, he said, is a life of active citizenship: voting thoughtfully, questioning leaders, and working alongside neighbours to solve the problems that shape daily life.
The ceremony’s theme, “Honouring O.R. Tambo’s Legacy: Inspiring Active Citizenship and Responsible Voting”, carried a message aimed squarely at ordinary people. Mashatile said the freedoms won through the liberation struggle come with a duty to protect and strengthen democracy, and that this duty belongs to citizens, not only to the state.
“Every election is an opportunity to honour those who fought, suffered, and died for the freedoms we enjoy today. Every vote cast is a tribute to their sacrifice,” Mashatile said. He urged South Africans to make informed electoral choices and to recognise the weight of responsibility that comes with choosing the people who will represent them.
For the communities he addressed, the stakes are concrete. Mashatile pointed to the municipal level, where decisions about water, sanitation, electricity, roads and other essential services touch residents’ lives directly. Beyond casting a ballot, he said, residents can engage with their municipalities, raise concerns, and monitor whether the representatives they elected are actually delivering.
Democracy, in his view, cannot begin and end at the ballot box. It depends on citizens who stay informed, take part in public life, and hold elected representatives accountable for their decisions. “The greatest tribute we can pay to O.R. Tambo is not simply to remember him each year. It is to live by the values he embodied,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mashatile acknowledged the hardships many South Africans live with every day. Poverty, unemployment, inequality, crime and gender-based violence remain serious challenges. While government carries a central responsibility to confront them, he argued that lasting progress requires cooperation among government, civil society, business and communities. He pointed to volunteering, supporting vulnerable people and confronting corruption as practical ways for citizens to help build stronger communities, making the point that nation-building cannot be left to government alone.
Leaders, too, were reminded of their obligations. “Those of us entrusted with positions of leadership in Government have a particular responsibility to lead this journey. We must provide vision, direction, and service to the people,” Mashatile said. Public representatives, he stressed, must serve ethically and respond to the needs of the people who elected them.
The deputy president placed the day’s message in the context of Tambo’s own life. Born on 27 October 1917, Tambo devoted himself to the struggle against apartheid and served as president of the African National Congress from 1967 to 1991. During his years in exile, he worked to sustain the liberation movement and to build international solidarity against apartheid. He died on 24 April 1993, before South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994 extended the right to vote to citizens of all races.
Reflecting on that history, Mashatile compared Tambo’s journey to that of the biblical Moses, who led his people out of captivity but never entered the promised land himself. Tambo, he said, fought for a democratic South Africa that he would never fully experience, which makes the choices of today’s citizens all the more meaningful.
Mashatile also warned about how political disagreement is expressed. Political differences, he said, must be voiced peacefully, and he cautioned against violence, intimidation and lawlessness during elections. “Democracy thrives when political differences are expressed through debate and the ballot box, not through conflict and division,” he said.
As the country reflects on Tambo’s contribution to the liberation struggle, Mashatile said South Africa must keep working towards a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society. He acknowledged that the promise of freedom remains incomplete while poverty, unemployment and inequality continue to affect communities, and he argued that every generation carries the responsibility to confront the challenges of its own time.
“We are the custodians of his legacy. We are the beneficiaries of the freedom for which he fought, and we bear the responsibility of ensuring that future generations inherit a country that is more secure and more prosperous than the one we inherited,” Mashatile said.
His message, in the end, was simple: remembering Tambo must mean more than gathering at his graveside each year. It must show in how South Africans vote, how their leaders serve, and how communities work together to build a country founded on justice, equality and human dignity. Whether next October’s visitors to Wattville find that call answered, in ballots cast and services delivered, remains the open question his words leave behind.