Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa, has died this morning aged 90. He was described as the country’s moral compass,
President Ramaphosa said Tutu was « an iconic spiritual leader, anti-apartheid activist and global human rights campaigner. It is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans ».
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.»
He said Archbishop Tutu had helped bequeath « a liberated South Africa ».
Archbishop Tutu was 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.
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. He 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.
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. A tireless activist, even after the fall of the racist apartheid regime, Tutu never shied away from confronting South Africa’s shortcomings or injustices.
Whether taking on his church over gay rights, lobbying for Palestinian statehood or calling out South Africa’s ruling African National Congress on corruption, his high-profile campaigns were thorny and often unwelcome.
None at the top were spared — not even his close friend, late president Nelson Mandela, with whom Tutu sparred in 1994 over what he called the ANC’s « gravy train mentality ».
Yet, Tutu brought an exuberant playfulness to all his endeavours. Quick to crack jokes — often at his own expense — he was always ready to dance and laugh uproariously with an infectious cackle that became his trademark.
It was Tutu who coined and popularised the term « Rainbow Nation » to describe South Africa when Mandela became president.
Tutu was one of the country’s best known figures at home and abroad. The Dalai Lama called Tutu his « spiritual older brother ».
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