October — OR Tambo Month — ought to be a time of pride and reflection. A time to salute the towering intellect and moral compass who kept the African National Congress alive through decades of exile, repression and internal strife. Yet, each October, as we invoke the name of Oliver Reginald Tambo, we must confront a bitter truth: our generation — and particularly the current leadership of the ANC — has betrayed his legacy.
Tambo stood for selflessness, integrity, collective leadership, and a vision of a just, united, and egalitarian South Africa. The ANC he led was disciplined, grounded in the masses, and anchored in moral conviction. The ANC today is unrecognisable — consumed by greed, factionalism, corruption, and careerism. It is no longer the movement of liberation that Tambo and his comrades built with such sacrifice.
The Moral Foundation of Tambo’s Leadership
OR Tambo led the ANC from 1967 to 1991 — nearly a quarter of a century in exile. During that period, he faced enormous challenges: the banning of the ANC, the imprisonment of its leaders, the disintegration of internal structures, and the global isolation of the anti-apartheid movement. Yet he did not waver. Tambo rebuilt the movement from ashes, transforming it into a formidable international force.
He was not a man of loud rhetoric or personal ambition. He led quietly but firmly, guided by principle rather than populism. His life embodied humility and sacrifice — he never enriched himself, never demanded loyalty through fear, and never used his position to amass personal wealth.
In Lusaka, London, and Moscow, Tambo lived modestly. He saw leadership as a burden, not a privilege. He understood that liberation was not only about ending apartheid but also about transforming society — uprooting the economic, racial, and gender hierarchies that defined colonial and capitalist exploitation. He believed in collective discipline and moral authority, not in the cult of personality.
Above all, Tambo’s ANC was a movement of service. Its members were expected to be the first to sacrifice and the last to benefit. It was a generation that believed political office was about advancing the cause of the people — not building empires of patronage.
A Betrayal of Values
The ANC of today is the antithesis of what OR Tambo represented. Corruption has become institutionalised. Tender manipulation, looting of state resources, and the auctioning of public office are now normalised practices. What was once a movement of disciplined cadres is now a career network where loyalty is traded for access to contracts and positions.
The leadership that Tambo painstakingly built — grounded in political education, ideological clarity, and humility — has been replaced by a class of opportunists who see politics as a ladder to personal enrichment. The ANC has lost its soul.
Tambo warned of this. Speaking at the ANC’s 1985 Consultative Conference in Kabwe, he cautioned against the “enemy within” — corruption, indiscipline, and the erosion of revolutionary morality. He insisted that the ANC’s survival depended on its ethical standing before the people.
Those words went unheeded. The post-1994 ANC inherited a state apparatus that was supposed to serve transformation. Instead, it has become a feeding trough. Billions meant for education, health, housing, and jobs are siphoned off by networks of political elites and their business partners. The very movement that once fought for “power to the people” has become a machinery of patronage and betrayal.
The Lost Vision of Economic Liberation
OR Tambo understood that political freedom without economic transformation would mean the continuation of apartheid under new management. In 1981, addressing the World Conference on Sanctions in Paris, he declared:
“Our struggle is not for black faces in high places. It is for the total liberation of our people from the chains of economic and social exploitation.”
Yet thirty years into democracy, the majority of black South Africans remain trapped in poverty, unemployment, and insecurity. The mines, banks, and factories remain largely under the control of white monopoly capital and a thin layer of black elites.
Instead of pursuing the Reconstruction and Development Programme’s (RDP) original vision of redistribution and state-led industrialisation, successive ANC administrations embraced neoliberal policies — privatisation, austerity, and deregulation. These policies enriched the few while entrenching inequality.
Tambo’s ANC saw the Freedom Charter as a blueprint for radical economic transformation. Today’s ANC treats it as a relic of history. “The wealth of the country shall be shared among all who live in it,” the Charter declared. But in today’s South Africa, that wealth is hoarded by a handful of billionaires while millions survive on less than R1,500 a month.
This economic betrayal is the most profound insult to Tambo’s legacy. He fought not merely for the vote, but for social justice — for schools, hospitals, housing, and dignified work for all. His vision has been trampled by the politics of greed and neoliberal submission.
Factionalism: The Death of Collective Leadership
Tambo’s genius lay in his ability to hold the ANC together during times of ideological tension and exile fatigue. He believed deeply in collective leadership. Decisions were debated, and once taken, they were respected.
Today, the ANC is a battlefield of factions — each driven by personal ambition, regional networks, and access to state contracts. Leadership contests have become wars of attrition fought with money, lies, and manipulation. The once-noble movement of liberation has been reduced to a cartel of self-interest.
Where Tambo inspired unity, today’s leaders thrive on division. Where he preached humility, they boast arrogance. Where he valued discipline, they normalise chaos. The moral compass of the movement has collapsed — and with it, the trust of the people.
The People OR Tambo Served Have Been Forgotten
OR Tambo’s politics were anchored in the people. He spent his life organising workers, students, women, and peasants — the very base of the liberation movement. He believed the ANC should be accountable to them, not to corporate donors or political elites.
Today, the ANC has turned its back on those people. Workers face mass retrenchments and wage freezes. Young people wander the streets hopelessly. Communities languish without water, housing, or electricity. Public hospitals collapse under austerity, while politicians enjoy private medical schemes.
If Tambo were alive, he would not recognise this South Africa. He would see a government that uses his name but rejects his values. He would see a movement that celebrates him in speeches yet buries his vision in practice.
Reclaiming the Legacy
To honour OR Tambo is not to repeat his quotes or hold annual galas. It is to live his values — honesty, self-sacrifice, and service. It is to fight for what he fought for: equality, justice, and dignity for every South African.
Reclaiming his legacy means confronting corruption not with rhetoric but with real accountability — no matter how high it goes. It means restoring the ANC, and indeed the broader liberation movement, to a moral and ideological foundation rooted in socialism, democracy, and people-centred development.
It means ending the neoliberal stranglehold that has turned our democracy into a marketplace. It means building a South Africa that places people before profits, jobs before bonuses, and humanity before greed.
Tambo’s generation believed in collective freedom. They risked their lives for a vision of a South Africa where no one would go hungry, homeless, or unemployed. We, their successors, owe them more than nostalgia — we owe them a revolution of conscience.
A Call to the Conscience of a Nation
Oliver Reginald Tambo’s life was a testament to the power of integrity. He led without seeking reward, served without demanding praise, and united where others divided. He was not merely the longest-serving president of the ANC — he was its moral soul.
His betrayal is not only the ANC’s failure — it is the failure of a generation that has allowed the ideals of liberation to be corrupted by greed and complacency. The time has come to reclaim his vision — to rebuild a people’s movement guided by ethics, principle, and the dream of a truly liberated South Africa.
As Tambo himself reminded us:
“A nation that forgets its heroes will itself soon be forgotten.”
Let us not forget him in slogans while abandoning his mission in practice. To honour OR Tambo is to rise against the rot, to rebuild the moral foundation of our democracy, and to fight once again for the soul of South Africa.
* Zwelinzima Vavi is the General Secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of or Independent Media.
