THE ICON-
Desmond Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to racial discrimination in South Africa, died at 90 on Sunday in Cape Town. President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “Desmond Tutu was a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”
Former United States President Barrack Obama, the nation’s first black leader to reach the White House, said how Tutu was a mentor, a friend and a moral compass for him. Archbishop Tutu inspired a generation of African leaders who embraced his non-violent approaches in the non-violent approach.
“A giant has fallen,” Bobi Wine said on Twitter.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was best known as an anti-apartheid icon, Nelson Mandela’s spiritual brother and campaigner for unity with the AIDS-afflicted and against homophobia. He coined the term Rainbow Nation for South Africa.
NOBEL PRIZE-
Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, acknowledging his campaign against apartheid. After the first democratic vote in post-apartheid South Africa in 1994. He spoke out against many ANC stalwarts’ slide into corruption.
Over the years since, Tutu spoke out several times about corruption in his country’s ruling elite. Most recently, in 2017, Tutu was among those who came out demanding the dispossession of President Jacob Zuma. For Tutu, corruption was not just about bribes.
Tutu led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to get past apartheid excesses without either obfuscation or vengeance between 1996 and 1998. During the time of South Africa’s pre-1994 system of institutionalized racial discrimination, he listened to the victims and openly wept yet opposed Nuremberg-style trials for those responsible for the atrocities.
MORAL UNIVERSE-
Tutu worked as a teacher before entering into theological seminary. He was appointed as an Anglican priest in 1961, obtained a master’s degree in theology at King’s College, University of London. In 1975, he was appointed Dean of Johannesburg, the first Black person to hold the post.
Desmond Tutu emerged as a leading voice of Black defiance against apartheid when many South Africa’s Black leaders were in jail, including Nelson Mandela and others in exile.
He became the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches in 1978, an organization at the forefront of the struggle against White-minority rule. His favourite saying was, ‘This is a moral universe; God is in charge of this world’.
MBEKI CRITIC-
Tutu criticized President Thabo Mbeki for not doing enough to combat poverty and the spread of AIDS and remaining silent about human-rights abuses in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
Tutu also confronted Jacob Zuma, saying he should have faced trial for taking bribes from arms dealers.
Father Michael Weeder, Dean of the cathedral, paced up to respect Archbishop Tutu. He said, “He died a holy death… it comes with some relief to the family because Father Desmond has been in much pain over these past weeks
