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Date : 27/10/2006
Source: The Presidency
Title: Mbeki: O R Tambo International Airport renaming


Address of the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, at the ceremony to rename the Johannesburg International Airport as the OR Tambo International Airport, Ekurhuleni

Director of Ceremonies
Mama Adelaide Tambo and other members of the Tambo family
Your Worship, Mayor of Ekurhuleni, Duma Nkosi
Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Ministers Jeff Hadebe, Pallo Jordan and other Ministers and Deputy Ministers
CEO of ACSA, Monhla Hlahla
Secretary General of the African Airlines Association, Mr Folly-Kossi
Representatives of the African Civil Aviation Commission
Africa Regional Vice President of IATA, Vinod Chidambaram
CEOs of various airlines
Your Excellencies Ambassadors and High Commissioners
Members of the media
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

If the drumbeat of time had permitted that Oliver Tambo should be alive today, we would have visited him at his home to wish him a happy 89th birthday. Unhappily this cannot be, but let it be that this important occasion at this Airport today serves as a heartfelt birthday salute to an eminent son of our people who is no longer with us.

We have convened here this morning to carry out a simple act. We are gathered at this airport building, having unveiled the obligatory plaque, to announce to our country and the world that this fixed place that was built and serves to facilitate the transient movement of human beings and goods, across our country and the world, has, from today onwards, acquired a new name.

If all this could be done without pomp and ceremony, all that we would need to do would merely be to unveil the plaque and announce the new name, and we would be done.

All that would remain would be for each one of us to drink a glass of water, or coffee or tea or benign fruit juice or a glass of wine or native brew, or pour a libation to thank the gods and leave in peace to do the ordinary and daily things that define where we belong within the ordinary processes that constitute the varied beehive activity that constitutes a day in the life of our nation.

However, the reality to which we must respond is that we have not convened here this morning merely to unveil a plaque and carry out an act of nomenclature. We have gathered here this morning to pay tribute to a rare human being, and to recite a humble prayer of thanks that even as it battled to extricate itself from centuries of conflict and a seemingly intractable crisis, our nation produced a son, O R Tambo, on whom it could, in the end and without hesitation, bestow the title – the liberator!

And thus do we have no choice but to do more this morning than merely say, let the nation know and let all humanity know, that from today onwards and for all time, this fixed place of passage, in the Metropolitan District of Ekurhuleni, shall henceforth be known, called and celebrated as the O R Tambo International Airport.

And yet the decision that was taken by those among us whom our nation has given the prerogative to decide, which decision we have the honour formally to announce today, contains no directive that when this moment comes, we should do anything more than announce that a decision has been made, and proclaim its content. And thus one of the things we could say, and should perhaps say, which is not prohibited in the decision to rename this airport, is that we are very pleased to walk in the footsteps of those who have gone before us, to give the travellers the possibility to associate their transition from their points of origin to their points of arrival with the name of a hero of our people.

We are truly moved that the millions who will pass through this important junction to many destinations at home and abroad will have the possibility truthfully to say that for a moment at least, they had the privilege personally to be associated with the name of an outstanding human being, Oliver Reginald Tambo.

What we have done this morning, to rename the Johannesburg International Airport as the OR Tambo International Airport, has a significance that reaches far beyond the confines of this Airport. Among other things and of the greatest importance this renaming ceremony is about our memory of ourselves, the memory of all future generations of all the things that combined to define our reality as a nation.

In this regard, I would like to assert this as a self-evident truth that if we do not retain our memory of ourselves, encapsulated in such inspiring lives as that of O R Tambo, we will fail properly to redefine ourselves as a new nation – if we do not know who we have been, we will not be able correctly to determine who we shall be!

History has bestowed on today's generations in our country the gift of a rare historic opportunity to superintend the birth of a nation and nurture it towards its maturity. Perforce, this circumstance that is truly beyond the ordinary obliges all those among us who care to think, to speak and act in special ways.

Thus, as we speak and act today, thus should we not forget that there was once a yesterday that carried in its hands both despair and hope, and that, born out of that past of a deadly conflict between darkness and light, we have a today, and will have a tomorrow and a day after, whose very being we, the generations that live, have the power to define, endowed even with the sacred right to say to present and future time – let there be light!

In times such as these, to do what is right demands that ordinary human beings such as ourselves, whose ordinary human minds normally contemplate things seen and unseen within the confines of measurable time and space, must strain the mind's eye to do the seemingly impossible, to look even beyond what we conceive of as the unseen. In challenging times such as these, I believe that we should search the annals of all human wisdom, through all time, to discover the lodestars that would guide us on our way as we strive to do what no other in our country has ever done before.

Thus do I walk backwards into the millennia and search the minds of the ancients of all lands, among whom is the Chinese scholar and teacher, Confucius, to learn whether he or any of the others, gave us any advice about what we must do with the blessing of the gift that is our heritage, to participate in the process of the birth of a nation, at all times deeply respectful of the sanctity of the gift of freedom that human sacrifice, history and fate have given to us as our due.

And thus do I come to the understanding that we must oblige ourselves to understand what Confucius meant when he said, two-and-half-millennia ago: "If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people." We have convened today at an important place in our country that carries a name that became familiar to all of us only during the last few years of liberty – Johannesburg International Airport.

When I and other combatants for our liberation such as Alfred Nzo, Joe Slovo and Chris Hani, who unfortunately are no longer with us came back to our country of birth in 1990, after almost three decades of exile this place was known by a then familiar name – Jan Smuts Airport.

It is in the nature of human knowledge in all its forms and all its reflections of all forms of reality, that at all times it changes. Necessarily, to represent the new, it must question the established truths that have hitherto constituted human knowledge. Thus discovery of the unknown cannot happen; new knowledge cannot emerge, unless the human mind questions the veracity of existing knowledge.

We cannot create the new without negating the old. We cannot create a truly democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa without eradicating the legacy of centuries-old colonialism and apartheid. As we do this, it is inevitable that our panoply of heroes and heroines will change, our memory of ourselves will alter, our view of what we have been, and therefore the history we teach to the young, will change. Nothing will be constant and permanent except change itself.

But, equally, I believe this to be true that as we create the new, we would lose our way if we have no other constants, no fixed points of reference, no lodestars, confronted only by a fluid situation in which everything is temporary and relative. It is for this reason that for us not to lose our way as we engage the complex process of rebuilding ourselves as a nation, we need such reference points as the inspiring life experience and the heritage left behind by Oliver Tambo and therefore the national memory all this represents.

And yet, even today not everybody in our country agrees that OR Tambo, this great son of our people who did everything he did, including the sacrifices he made, in search of the happiness of all our people, black and white, can or should serve as such a national reference point. And thus we come back to what Confucius said, obliged to answer the question – as we rename Johannesburg International Airport, OR Tambo International Airport, are we thinking in terms of a year, ten years or a hundred years!

I would like to believe that we have not gathered here today either to plant a seed or to plant a tree. I am convinced that we have convened here today to rename this important airport because we are thinking in terms of a hundred years. Johannesburg International Airport has today acquired a new name as part of our response to what Confucius said, that if we think in terms of a hundred years, we should teach the people, rather than merely planting seeds and trees.

Oliver Tambo dedicated his life to the liberation and happiness of all our people. Through those long years of struggle he knew that, as Confucius said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and that "It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness."

To help to arrive at this point in the evolution of our nation, when we can speak of 12 years of freedom for all and an emerging common nationhood, Oliver Tambo and others of his peers and predecessors had to take the first, the second and the third steps of a journey of a thousand miles. Rather than merely curse the darkness of oppression, he and others have through struggle lit many small candles. It is clear that some in our society have not understood what has been done for them too, by those, such as Oliver Tambo, who took the first steps along a long road to freedom, and lit the small candles that represent our dawn.

To unite our nation behind a common vision of shared liberty and shared prosperity, to deepen our sense of common nationhood with common heroes and heroines, to inspire the new patriotism of which we have spoken many times, to redefine ourselves as a people truly committed to the practice of human solidarity, we must, like Oliver Tambo, not think in terms of one year, or ten but a century.

And thus should the name this airport will carry from today onwards, OR Tambo International Airport, serve both to identify this national asset as well as act as a teacher of our people about one who represented the best in our national character, a lodestar that should guide us on our way as we do all the things we must do, together, to ensure that South Africa truly belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

In Shakespeare's play of the same name, Hamlet speaks in praise of the human species and says:

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!”

This too we should say of Oliver Tambo – What a piece of work he was! How noble in reason! The beauty of our world! The paragon of animals!

On behalf of our government and in the name of our nation, I am privileged to let our people and all nations to know that from today, henceforth, this eminent port of entry into our country shall be known as the OR Tambo International Airport.

Let all who pass through her doors come to learn that she carries the name of one who, rather than merely curse the darkness of savage oppression, lit the little candles that today light our way to a bright future for all our people.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
27 October 2006

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