South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu dies at 90

[James]

Sad news. RIP

— — —

<b>Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90.</b>

President Cyril Ramaphosa said the churchman's death marked "another chapter of bereavement in our nation's farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans".

He said Archbishop Tutu had helped bequeath "a liberated South Africa".

Tutu was one of the country's best known figures at home and abroad.

A contemporary of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, he was was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 until 1991.

He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle to abolish the apartheid system.

Tutu's death comes just weeks after that of South Africa's last apartheid-era president, FW de Clerk, who died at the age of 85.

President Ramaphosa said Tutu was "an iconic spiritual leader, anti-apartheid activist and global human rights campaigner".

He described him as "a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.

"A man of extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid, he was also tender and vulnerable in his compassion for those who had suffered oppression, injustice and violence under apartheid, and oppressed and downtrodden people around the world."

Ordained as a priest in 1960, he went on to serve as bishop of Lesotho from 1976-78, assistant bishop of Johannesburg and rector of a parish in Soweto. He became Bishop of Johannesburg in 1985, and was appointed the first black Archbishop of Cape Town.

Tutu used his high-profile role to speak out against oppression of black people in his home country, always saying his motives were religious and not political.

After Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994, Tutu was appointed by him to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate crimes committed by both whites and blacks during the apartheid era.

Tutu was also credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation to describe the ethnic mix of post-apartheid South Africa, but in his latter years he expressed regret that the nation had not coalesced in the way in which he had dreamt.

— — —

 

[James]

— — —

<b>BBC Obituary: Desmond Tutu - South Africa's rebellious priest.</b>

Desmond Tutu was the smiling South African archbishop whose irrepressible personality won him friends and admirers around the world.

As a high-profile black churchman he was inevitably drawn into the struggle against white-minority rule but always insisted his motives were religious, not political.

He was appointed by Nelson Mandela to head South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate crimes committed by both sides during the apartheid era.

He was also credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation to describe the ethnic mix of post-apartheid South Africa.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in 1931 in a small gold-mining town in what was then the Transvaal.

He first followed in his father's footsteps as a teacher, but abandoned that career after the passage of the Bantu Education Act in 1953 which introduced racial segregation in schools.

He joined the church and was strongly influenced by many white clergymen in the country, especially another strong opponent of apartheid, Bishop Trevor Huddleston.

He served as bishop of Lesotho from 1976-78, assistant bishop of Johannesburg and rector of a parish in Soweto, before his appointment as bishop of Johannesburg.

It was as a dean that he first began to raise his voice against injustice in South Africa and again from 1977 onwards as general secretary of the South African Council of Churches.

Already a high-profile figure before the 1976 rebellion in black townships, it was in the months before the Soweto violence that he first became known to white South Africans as a campaigner for reform.

His efforts saw him awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 in what was seen as a major snub by the international community to South Africa's white rulers.

Desmond Tutu's enthronement as Archbishop of Cape Town was attended by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, and the widow of Martin Luther King.

As head of the Anglican Church in South Africa, he continued to campaign actively against apartheid. In March 1988, he declared: "We refuse to be treated as the doormat for the government to wipe its jackboots on.”

Six months later, he risked jail by calling for a boycott of municipal elections.

He was caught in a cloud of tear gas in August 1989, when police took action against people leaving a church in a township near Cape Town, and the following month he was arrested after refusing to leave a banned rally.

As archbishop, his calls for punitive sanctions against South Africa struck a chord throughout the world, especially as they were coupled with a total condemnation of violence.

In 1985, Tutu and another bishop bravely and dramatically rescued a suspected police informer as he was being assaulted and about to be burnt to death by an angry mob in a township east of South Africa's main city, Johannesburg.

The clergymen pushed through the mob and pulled to safety the bleeding, half-conscious man, just before the petrol-doused tyre around his neck was set alight.

Tutu later returned to rebuke the man's attackers, reminding them of "the need to use righteous and just means for a righteous and just struggle".

Tutu warmly welcomed the liberalising reforms announced by President FW de Klerk soon after he took office. These included the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) and the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990.

Soon afterwards, Tutu announced a ban on clergy joining political parties, which was condemned by other churches.

He was never afraid to voice his opinions. In April 1989, when he went to Birmingham in the UK, he criticised what he termed "two-nation" Britain, and said there were too many black people in the country's prisons.

Later he angered the Israelis when, during a Christmas pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he compared black South Africans with the Arabs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

He said he could not understand how people who had suffered as the Jews had, could inflict such suffering on the Palestinians.

Desmond Tutu was a great admirer of Nelson Mandela, but did not always agree with him on issues such as the use of violence in pursuit of a just end.

In November 1995, Mandela, by then South Africa's president, asked Tutu to head a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, with the task of gathering evidence of apartheid-era crimes and recommending whether people confessing their involvement should receive amnesty.

At the end of the commission's inquiry, Tutu attacked South Africa's former white leaders, saying most of them had lied in their testimony. The commission also accused the ANC of committing human rights abuses during its fight against apartheid. Both sides rejected the report.


Tutu was often overcome by the pain of those who had suffered under apartheid and, on more than one occasion, was reduced to tears.

He also found much to criticise in South Africa's new black-majority government. He launched a stinging attack on the ANC administration led by President Thabo Mbeki.

He said the ANC had not done enough to alleviate poverty among the poorest in the country and that too much wealth and power was concentrated in the hands of a new black political elite.

He later urged Jacob Zuma, who had been accused of sexual crimes and corruption, to abandon his attempts to become president.

He was also vocal in his condemnation of Robert Mugabe, once describing the Zimbabwean president as "a cartoon figure of an archetypical African dictator". Mugabe, in turn, described Tutu as "evil".

He could also be critical of his own Anglican church particularly in the aftermath of the row over the ordination of gay bishops.

"God is weeping," he once said when he accused the church of allowing an "obsession" with homosexuality to take precedence over the fight against world poverty.

He returned to the subject of poverty when he visited Ireland in 2010. He urged Western nations to consider the effect of cuts in overseas aid in the wake of the economic downturn.

Tutu formally retired from public life in the same year to, he said, spend more time "drinking red bush tea and watching cricket" than "in airports and hotels".

But ever the rebel, he came out in support of assisted suicide in 2014, stating that life should not be preserved "at any cost".

Contrary to the views of many church figures, he held that human beings had the right to choose to die.

He said his great friend and fellow campaigner Mandela, who died in December 2013, had suffered a long and painful illness which was in his opinion "an affront to Madiba's dignity".

In 2017, Tutu sharply criticised Myanmar's leader and fellow Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, saying it was "incongruous for a symbol of righteousness" to lead a country where the Muslim minority was facing "ethnic cleansing".

Later that year, he opposed Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel. "God is weeping," he wrote on Twitter, over this "inflammatory & discriminatory" act.

A small man, "the Arch", as he was known, was gregarious and ebullient, emanating a spirit of joy despite his intense sense of mission.

He was witty, and his conversation was frequently punctuated by high-pitched chuckles.

But beyond this, Desmond Tutu was a man of impeccably strong moral convictions who strove to bring about a peaceful South Africa.

— — —

 

[Robert]

An icon of forgiveness and reconciliation.

He had courage and lived the values of his faith.

One of the greatest of men.

 

[IMMY69]

Extremely sad news.

RIP Archbishop Tutu

 

[KingKhanWC]

A huge loss to the world. RIP

He was never scared to speak the truth.

 

[James]

James pls add

JOHANNESBURG: Cricket South Africa (CSA) has learnt with sadness and a feeling of tremendous loss of the passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, this morning.



CSA sends its condolences to the entire Tutu family, friends, colleagues, the Anglican Church and indeed to the whole of South Africa. Archibishop Tutu departs these shores having made an indelible contribution in the struggle against the unjust and criminal system of apartheid. He dedicated his entire life on the project of healing and reconciliation for our nation, a process he carried through even beyong his Chairmanship of the Truth and Reconcialiation Commission in the 1990s.



Cricket benefitted immensely from his heroic efforts, as it ushered in a new era of unity, embodying God’s rainbow people. He passes on, on a day that South Africa and India commence a Test series, which also marks the 30th Anniversary of South Africa’s readmission into international cricket after our period of isolation from international participation.



This makes the Archibishop’s passing a very painful loss to CSA, as his activism and teachings helped in transforming the sport of cricket. CSA is delighted that the Archibishop was an avid cricket fan, and yet another of the great Sons and Daughters of our soil that we have lost this year.



CSA’s Acting Chief Executive Officer Mr Pholetsi Moseki comments “There are just a handful of people who have made a greater contribution to our democracy, the reconcialiation project and indeed the difficult times of transformation and the unification of sport and in particular cricket in South Africa than our beloved and much respected Archibishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.”

 

[transparent opacity]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">My deepest condolences on the passing of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate, close confidant of Nelson Mandela, an icon of anti-apartheid struggle & champion of human rights. His critical role in liberation & national reconciliation are an inspiration for future generations.</p>— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) <a href="https://twitter.com/ImranKhanPTI/status/1475122190098051076?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Last Monetarist]

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-tutu-anti-apartheid-hero-who-never-stopped-fighting-rainbow-nation-2021-12-26/

"Like falling in love" is how Archbishop Desmond Tutu described voting in South Africa's first democratic election in 1994, a remark that captured both his puckish humour and his profound emotions after decades fighting apartheid.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate whose moral might permeated South African society during apartheid's darkest hours and into the unchartered territory of new democracy, died on Sunday. He was 90.

The outspoken Tutu was considered the nation's conscience by both Black and white, an enduring testament to his faith and spirit of reconciliation in a divided nation.

He preached against the tyranny of white minority and even after its end, he never wavered in his fight for a fairer South Africa, calling the black political elite to account with as much feistiness as he had the white Afrikaners.

In his final years, he regretted that his dream of a "Rainbow Nation" had not yet come true.

On the global stage, the human rights activist spoke out across a range of topics, from Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories to gay rights, climate change and assisted death - issues that cemented Tutu's broad appeal.

Tutu "was a prophet and priest, a man of words and action", said the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the symbolic head of Tutu's Anglican Communion. British billionaire Richard Branson called him "a brave leader, a mischievous delight, a profound thinker, and a dear friend."

Just five feet five inches (1.7 metres) tall and with an infectious giggle, Tutu was a moral giant who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his non-violent struggle against apartheid.

He used his high-profile role in the Anglican Church to highlight the plight of black South Africans.

Asked on his retirement as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996 if he had any regrets, Tutu said: "The struggle tended to make one abrasive and more than a touch self-righteous. I hope that people will forgive me any hurts I may have caused them."

Talking and travelling tirelessly throughout the 1980s, Tutu became the face of the anti-apartheid movement abroad while many of the leaders of the rebel African National Congress (ANC), such as Nelson Mandela, were behind bars.

"Our land is burning and bleeding and so I call on the international community to apply punitive sanctions against thisgovernment," he said in 1986.

Even as governments ignored the call, he helped rouse grassroots campaigns around the world that fought for an end to apartheid through economic and cultural boycotts.

Former hardline white president P.W. Botha asked Tutu in a letter in March 1988 whether he was working for the kingdom of God or for the kingdom promised by the then-outlawed and now ruling ANC.

GRAVESIDE ORATIONS

Among his most painful tasks was delivering graveside orations for Black people who had died violently during the struggle against white domination.

"We are tired of coming to funerals, of making speeches week after week. It is time to stop the waste of human lives," he once said.

Tutu said his stance on apartheid was moral rather than political.

"It's easier to be a Christian in South Africa than anywhere else, because the moral issues are so clear in this country," he once told Reuters.

In February 1990, Tutu led Nelson Mandela on to a balcony at Cape Town's City Hall overlooking a square where the ANC talisman made his first public address after 27 years in prison.

He was at Mandela's side four years later when he was sworn in as the country's first black president.

"Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu's voice will always be the voice of the voiceless," is how Mandela, who died in December 2013, described his friend.

While Mandela introduced South Africa to democracy, Tutu headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that laid bare the terrible truths of the war against white rule.

Some of the heartrending testimony moved him publicly to tears.

PULLED NO PUNCHES

But Tutu was as tough on the new democracy as he was on South Africa's apartheid rulers.

He castigated the new ruling elite for boarding the "gravy train" of privilege and chided Mandela for his long public affair with Graca Machel, whom he eventually married.

In his Truth Commission report, Tutu refused to treat the excesses of the ANC in the fight against white rule any more gently than those of the apartheid government.

Even in his twilight years, he never stopped speaking his mind, condemning President Jacob Zuma over allegations of corruption surrounding a $23 million security upgrade to his home.

In 2014, he admitted he did not vote for the ANC, citing moral grounds.

"As an old man, I am sad because I had hoped that my last days would be days of rejoicing, days of praising and commending the younger people doing the things that we hoped so very much would be the case," Tutu told Reuters in June 2014.

In December 2003, he rebuked his government for its support for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, despite growing criticism over his human rights record.

Tutu drew a parallel between Zimbabwe's isolation and South Africa's battle against apartheid.

"We appealed for the world to intervene and interfere in South Africa's internal affairs. We could not have defeated apartheid on our own," Tutu said. "What is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander too."

He also criticised South African President Thabo Mbeki for his public questioning of the link between HIV and AIDS, saying Mbeki's international profile had been tarnished.

SCHOOL TEACHER'S SON

A schoolteacher's son, Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, a conservative town west of Johannesburg, on Oct. 7, 1931.

The family moved to Sophiatown in Johannesburg, one of the commercial capital's few mixed-race areas, subsequently demolished under apartheid laws to make way for the white suburb of Triomf - “Triumph in Afrikaans.

Always a passionate student, Tutu first worked as a teacher. But he said he had become infuriated with the system of educating Blacks, once described by a South African prime minister as aimed at preparing them for their role in society as servants.

Tutu quit teaching in 1957 and decided to join the church, studying first at St. Peter's Theological College in Johannesburg. He was ordained a priest in 1961 and continued his education at King's College in London.

After four years abroad, he returned to South Africa, where his sharp intellect and charismatic preaching saw him rise through lecturing posts to become Anglican Dean of Johannesburg in 1975, which was when his activism started taking shape.

"I realised that I had been given a platform that was not readily available to many Blacks, and most of our leaders were either now in chains or in exile. And I said: 'Well, I'm going to use this to seek to try to articulate our aspirations and the anguishes of our people'," he told a reporter in 2004.

By now too prominent and globally respected to be thrust aside by the apartheid government, Tutu used his appointment as Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches in 1978 to call for sanctions against his country.

He was named the first Black Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986, becoming the head of the Anglican Church, South Africa's fourth largest. He would retain that position until 1996.

In retirement he battled prostate cancer and largely withdrew from public life. In one of his last public appearances, he hosted Britain’s Prince Harry, his wife Meghan and their four-month-old son Archie at his charitable foundation in Cape Town in September 2019, calling them a "genuinely caring" couple.

Tutu married Nomalizo Leah Shenxane in 1955. They had four children and several grandchildren, and homes in Cape Town and Soweto township near Johannesburg.

 

[MenInG]

A week of memorial services has been planned to pay tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The 90-year-old anti-apartheid veteran died at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town on Boxing Day.

His funeral is set to take place in Cape Town on Saturday 1 January but plans are still in their "infancy", a statement from the Archbishop Tutu IP Trust and the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

It seems to me like the Arch Bishops very vocal criticism of Israel is being under reported.

Nobody knew the horrors of apartheid better than Desmond Tutu and he spoke about how Israel was the modern apartheid state.

The hypocrites in government in many countries are lauding Tutu yet refusing to criticise the apartheid practiced in Israel.

 

[KingKhanWC]

It seems to me like the Arch Bishops very vocal criticism of Israel is being under reported.

Nobody knew the horrors of apartheid better than Desmond Tutu and he spoke about how Israel was the modern apartheid state.

The hypocrites in government in many countries are lauding Tutu yet refusing to criticise the apartheid practiced in Israel.

This is now seen as racism in UK.

 

[James]

It is indeed not being mentioned by governments at all, but I have seen lots of criticism of Tutu on social media since his passing due to his views on Israel.

 

[Technics 1210]

It is indeed not being mentioned by governments at all, but I have seen lots of criticism of Tutu on social media since his passing due to his views on Israel.

Zionist brainwashing propaganda machine at work.

 

[Robert]

It is indeed not being mentioned by governments at all, but I have seen lots of criticism of Tutu on social media since his passing due to his views on Israel.

Really? I have not seen a word against him. I have seen universal love and admiration.

But then we FBPE types are in an echo chamber where liars are castigated while decent people are praised

 

[James]

Really? I have not seen a word against him. I have seen universal love and admiration.

But then we FBPE types are in an echo chamber where liars are castigated while decent people are praised

Yes, Tutu is being strongly critiqued by Zionists.

Zionist/Israel/etc Twitter is a much more volatile space than even FBPE, Brexit, Covid, etc… best avoided.

 

[MenInG]

The funeral mass for South African anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu is set to take place on Saturday morning in Cape Town.

Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who helped end the racist regime in South Africa, died last Sunday aged 90.

His death prompted an outpouring of grief among South Africans.

Thousands have paid their respects at St George's Cathedral where his body has been lying in state in a simple casket.

Tutu was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 until 1991.

He will be given an official state funeral with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa expected to deliver the main eulogy.

Tutu had insisted there should be "no ostentatiousness or lavish spending" on the ceremony and that he be given "the cheapest available coffin".

He also said the only flowers in the cathedral should be a "bouquet of carnations from his family", according to the Archbishop Tutu IP Trust and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.

His ashes are to be interred behind the pulpit at St George's Cathedral in Cape Town - the Anglican diocese he served as Archbishop for 35 years.

It was earlier revealed that Tutu is to be aquamated - a process using water that is described as an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation.

Many people in Cape Town turned up to file past the archbishop's coffin as it lay in state.

One man, Wally Mdluli, hitchhiked more than 1,000km (620 miles) across the country from Bloemfontein to Cape Town - enlisting the help of family and friends to pay for some of the trip and even sleeping at a petrol station on the way.

"I feel fulfilled after I saw the coffin. It's like his spirit is in me," he told the BBC's Nomsa Maseko in Cape Town.

Tutu used his high-profile to speak out against oppression of black people in his home country, always saying his motives were religious and not political.

After Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994, Tutu was appointed by him to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate crimes committed by both whites and blacks during the apartheid era.

Tutu was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle to abolish the apartheid system.

He was also credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation to describe the ethnic mix of post-apartheid South Africa, but in his latter years he expressed regret that the nation had not coalesced in the way in which he had dreamt.

BBC

 

[Last Monetarist]

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-anti-apartheid-veteran-tutu-be-laid-rest-state-funeral-2022-01-01/

President Cyril Ramaphosa lauded the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu as "our moral compass and national conscience" as South Africa bade farewell at a state funeral on Saturday to a hero of the struggle against apartheid.

"Our departed father was a crusader in the struggle for freedom, for justice, for equality and for peace, not just in South Africa, the country of his birth, but around the world," Ramaphosa said, delivering the main eulogy at the service in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, where for years Tutu preached against racial injustice.

The president then handed over the national flag to Tutu's widow, Nomalizo Leah, known as "Mama Leah". Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1984 for his non-violent opposition to white minority rule, died last Sunday aged 90.

His widow sat in a wheelchair in the front row of the congregation, draped in a purple scarf, the colour of her husband's clerical robes. Ramaphosa wore a matching necktie.

Cape Town, the city where Tutu lived for most of his later life, was unseasonably rainy early on Saturday as mourners gathered to bid farewell to the man fondly known as "The Arch".

The sun shone brightly after the requiem Mass as six white-robed clergy acting as pall bearers wheeled the coffin out of the cathedral to a hearse.

Tutu's body will be cremated and then his ashes interred behind the cathedral's pulpit in a private ceremony.

"Small in physical stature, he was a giant among us morally and spiritually," said retired Bishop Michael Nuttall, who served as Tutu's deputy for many years.

Life-size posters of Tutu, with his hands clasped, were placed outside the cathedral, where the number of congregants was restricted in line with COVID-19 measures.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who leads the global Anglican Communion, said in a recorded message: "People have said 'when we were in the dark, he brought light' and that... has lit up countries globally that are struggling with fear, conflicts, persecution, oppression."

Tutu's family members were visibly emotional.

His daughter, Reverend Nontombi Naomi Tutu, thanked well-wishers for their support as the Mass began, her voice briefly quivering with emotion.

Widely revered across South Africa's racial and cultural divides for his moral integrity, Tutu never stopped fighting for his vision of a "Rainbow Nation" in which all races in post-apartheid South Africa could live in harmony.

Hundreds of well-wishers queued on Thursday and Friday to pay their last respects as his body lay in state at the cathedral.

As Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Tutu turned St George's into what is known as a "People's Cathedral" a refuge for anti-apartheid activists during the turbulent 1980s and 1990s when security forces brutally repressed the mass democratic movement.

A small crowd of around 100 people followed the funeral proceedings on a big screen at the Grand Parade, opposite City Hall where Tutu joined Nelson Mandela when he gave his first speech after being freed from prison.

“We have come to give our last respects to our father Tutu. We love our father, who taught us about love, unity and respect for one another,” said Mama Phila, a 54-year-old Rastafarian draped in the green, red and yellow colours of her faith.

Mandela, who became the country's first post-apartheid president and who died in December 2013, once said of his friend: "Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu's voice will always be the voice of the voiceless."