Remembering those who gave their lives for peace
10 November 2025
City Deputy Mayor Eddie Andrews delivered the below Remembrance Day address at the Cenotaph in Adderley Street on 9 November 2025:
Today [9 November 2025], as we gather in solemn reflection, we stand once more before this cenotaph, this stone of remembrance, to honour those who gave their lives in the pursuit of peace. We pause not only to remember the dead, but to listen to what their silence still asks of the living.
More than a century has passed since the guns of the First World War fell silent, and yet the world still echoes with conflict. From the plains of Europe to the deserts of Africa, from the Middle East to South America - innocent lives are again caught between power and pride.
It reminds us of a truth that is both humbling and urgent: peace is not a permanent condition; it is a daily choice. It must be renewed through dialogue when differences harden, through restraint when anger rises, and through justice when inequality breeds despair. History shows that peace cannot survive on sentiment. It requires systems, leadership, and moral consistency and when those fail, even briefly, the distance between stability and tragedy narrows with alarming speed.
Today, we remember the young South Africans who crossed oceans to fight in wars that were not their own. We remember the families who waited by the window for sons and daughters who would never return. We remember the 25 000 South Africans who lost their lives. Their names are etched in stone, but their legacy lives in the choices we make as a society. They belonged to an era that believed service could transcend self-interest, that duty could outlive ambition, and that courage meant protecting not only one’s country, but one’s convictions. That generation bore the cost of humanity’s inability to settle its differences with reason rather than force.
Therefore, their story must be more than a memory. It must guide how we think, how we lead, and how we live. Because remembrance without reflection is nostalgia, and remembrance without responsibility becomes a mere ritual. Rituals may bring comfort, but responsibility brings change, and that is the true purpose of remembrance. The lessons of those wars are not relics of the past. They live in the choices we make - in how we govern, how we serve, and how we treat one another.
Cape Town strives to be a city of bridges: between faiths, between histories, between people. This effort is not symbolic; it is structural. Because diversity without real inclusion and shared opportunity, does not build unity, it exposes inequality. When access to safety, opportunity, or justice is uneven, difference hardens into resentment, and social cohesion begins to erode. But when government works fairly – when the same rules, rights, and responsibilities apply to everyone – diversity becomes an asset.
It builds trust, strengthens legitimacy, and turns shared space into shared purpose. That is why inclusion must never sit at the edge of policy. It must sit at its centre as it is a condition for stability, growth, and peace.
Peace is built and broken by the way we govern, the way we speak, and the way we respond when differences test our restraint. The men and women we remember today fought with courage, but courage does not end when the battle does. It lives on in the peacemaker who chooses dialogue when silence would be safer and in the young activist who channels anger into action and hope.
To those we remember today, and to all of you who continue to serve, in uniform, in community, or through quiet perseverance, we honour you. Your example reminds us that service is not measured by rank or title, but by purpose and integrity. It shows us that peace is not imposed, it is built patiently and often without reward, and seldom with recognition.
And so, we gather not to glorify war, but to sanctify peace; not to celebrate victory, but to remember sacrifice; not to relive history, but to redeem the future.
Remembrance calls on us to protect the conditions of peace:
- To resolve inequality before it becomes instability
- To defend truth before misinformation corrodes trust,
- And to invest in justice before injustice demands a higher price.
Cape Town stands today as a city that believes in that promise: a city of diversity, of resilience, of shared humanity. We stand together beneath Table Mountain, firm in the conviction that unity is our strongest defence against division, and peace our greatest monument to the fallen.
As we lay wreaths and bow our heads, let this moment remind us that remembrance is not passive. It is a call to build the better world they dreamed of, with the same resolve with which they defended it.
We remember. We recommit. We rebuild. And as long as this city endures, so too will our promise that those who died for peace will not have died in vain.
Thank you.
Photograph.
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
