Onkgopotse Tiro is one of the human beings who did not just sacrifice his achievements as a black person but put his life on the line for his people.
South Africa has become comfortable celebrating its heroes while abandoning the causes for which they gave their lives.
Onkgopotse Abram Tiro is commemorated annually as we gather in lecture halls, lay wreaths, quote his speeches and praise his courage. We tell young people about the student who stood before the apartheid establishment at Turfloop in 1972 and refused to exchange truth for comfort at a time when choosing the latter would have spared his life.
We honour the revolutionary who challenged Bantu Education, exposed the political purpose of apartheid's universities and reminded Black graduates that education imposed a responsibility to liberate their people.
We remember the young man who was expelled, driven into exile and eventually assassinated because the apartheid regime feared the power of his ideas.
