Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu, the cleric and social activist who was a giant of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90. Tutu, described by foreign observers and his countrymen as the moral conscience of his nation, died in Cape Town on Boxing Day.
Excitable, emotional and charismatic, Tutu won the Nobel peace prize in 1984 and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the controversial and emotional hearings into apartheid-era human rights abuses. This is his life, in his own words
• Anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu dies aged 90
• ‘A patriot without equal’: world mourns death of Desmond Tutu
THE NEW YORK TIMES: The archbishop, a powerful force for nonviolence in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
Desmond M. Tutu at Washington National Cathedral in 1984. The archbishop was a spellbinding preacher, assuring his parishioners of God’s love while exhorting them to follow the path of nonviolence in their struggle. | Associated Press
Desmond M. Tutu, the cleric who used his pulpit and spirited oratory to help bring down apartheid in South Africa and then became the leading advocate of peaceful reconciliation under Black majority rule, died on Sunday in Cape Town. He was 90.
His death was confirmed by the office of South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who called the archbishop “a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”
The cause of death was cancer, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said, adding that Archbishop Tutu had died in a care facility. He was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997, and was hospitalized several times in the years since, amid recurring fears that the disease had spread.
As leader of the South African Council of Churches and later as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Archbishop Tutu led the church to the forefront of Black South Africans’ decades-long struggle for freedom. His voice was a powerful force for nonviolence in the anti-apartheid movement, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. » | Marilyn Berger | Sunday, December 26, 2021
Lifelong campaigner for human rights Archbishop Desmond Tutu. (UN Free & Equal)
PINK NEWS: Archbishop Desmond Tutu has compared anti-LGBT+ laws and violence to apartheid, insisting that he opposes them with the “same passion”.
The 90-year-old Archbishop Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has spent his life campaigning for human rights.
He was a major opponent of South Africa’s apartheid system, and has worked for universal suffrage, equal rights for women in the Anglican Church and LGBT+ rights.
In a video for the United Nations Free and Equal campaign, its “global campaign against homophobia and transphobia”, Tutu said: “I have to tell you, I cannot keep quiet when people are penalised for something about which they can do nothing.
“First, gender. When women are excluded, just simply and solely because they are women.
“But more perniciously, more ghastly, is the fact that people are penalised, killed, all sorts of ghastly things happen to them, simply, solely on the basis of their sexual orientation. » | Lily Wakefield | Saturday, November 27, 2021
Archdhimmi Desmond Tutu Displays His Woeful Ignorance about Islam
"Dutch MP Geert Wilders’ comparison of the Quran to Mein Kampf is deeply offensive and betrays a profound ignorance of Islam." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
