Renaming South Africa’s main airport after a liberator like late African National Congress (ANC) president OR Tambo keeps the country’s memories alive, said President Thabo Mbeki on Friday.
”This renaming ceremony is about our memory of ourselves,” said Mbeki. ”If we do not know who we have been, we will not know who we will be.”
He said the airport now ”carries the name of one who, rather than curse the darkness of oppression, lit the candles hat led the way to a brighter future”.
Johannesburg International airport was officially renamed OR Tambo International airport on Friday morning.
Mbeki then unveiled a bust of Tambo at the ceremony at hanger eight at the airport, watched by former president Nelson Mandela, his wife Graca Machel, Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe, Tambo’s widow Adelaide and his relatives.
Mbeki called Tambo a liberator and a lodestar in the struggle against apartheid, and said the renaming had a wider significance despite some opposition to it.
”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, both black and white, that he can or should serve as a such a national reference point.”
Mbeki said those who travelled through the airport would now have the privilege of saying they had a brief association with Tambo.
Tambo led the ANC in exile for 30 years and died in April 1993. It would have been his 89th birthday on Friday.
Earlier, a banner with the old name was pulled off the main airport terminal building, revealing the newly-painted new name, while musician Jonas Gwangwa serenaded the change.
The new name is flanked by a picture of a smiling Tambo wearing ANC colours and the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) logo. Acsa runs the airport.
The unveiling was cheered by Mbeki, Mandela, Machel, Tambo’s family and many construction workers.
OR Tambo is the third name in the airport’s history. It was first known as Jan Smuts Airport.
Ekurhuleni metro mayor Duma Nkosi described Tambo as the man ”who was able to galvanise the international community to declare apartheid a crime against humanity and whose contribution straddles
decades at all phases of the struggle for justice and freedom”.
The airport is in the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality area.
Many at Friday’s event wore T-shirts honouring Tambo, displaying a quote from him: ”It is our responsibility to break down barriers of division and create a country where there will be neither whites nor blacks, just South Africans, free and united in diversity.”
Acsa chief executive Monhla Hlahla welcomed the change.
”With every departure, with every arrival, Oliver Tambo lives on.”
Road signs to the airport have already been changed to reflect the new name. — Sapa