Desmond Mpilo Tutu (1931-2021)

HAD he opted to live quietly as a priest, tending to his flock and steering clear of politics, the career of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who passed on aged 90 on December 26, 2021 in Cape Town, South Africa, would have been no less remarkable. Following his ordainment as an Anglican priest in 1961 and a spell in Britain the year after as a theology student at King’s College, London, Tutu had risen to become the first black Anglican Dean of Johannesburg in 1975. Having been appointed Bishop of Lesotho in 1976, he quickly gained another distinction in 1978 when he became the first black Secretary General of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) in 1978. He would go on to become the first black Bishop of Johannesburg in 1985 and the first black person to be appointed as Bishop of Cape Town and head of the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa in 1986.

This would have been a distinguished record under any circumstance, but Archbishop Tutu did not become a man of the cloth for the sake of accolades. Had that been the case, he would gladly have stayed back in London in 1962 at the completion of his theology programme. Tutu’s first and real love was liberty, which he wanted and vigorously campaigned for, not just for black South Africans who suffered under the dehumanising regimen of Apartheid, but for all humanity. The following quote summarises his personal philosophy: “We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.”

Tutu started his campaign against Apartheid after his return to South Africa from Britain in 1966. On paper, he was teaching theology at an Eastern Cape Coast seminary, but in reality, he was doing much more. It was there that he started developing his unique blend of the theologico-political. Just as he believed that true liberty was universal and transcended race, Tutu held, and preached that the theological was inseparable from the political, particularly in any context where the political order promoted the deracination of the individual, as was no doubt the case during the era of Apartheid. Hence, Apartheid was not just a crime against black people in South Africa, it was a crime against humanity. Such was the success of Tutu’s message and his ensuing international renown that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. Although he often spoke softly (“Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument,” he would often admonish), Archbishop Tutu was a man of courage who liked to take the fight to power. In 1980, a full decade before President F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the African National Congress (ANC), he led a delegation of church leaders to the then South African Prime Minister, Pieter Willem Botha, to demand an end to Apartheid. For his troubles, the South African government confiscated his passport.

Although his dream of a free South Africa was eventually realised in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela as president, Archbishop Tutu did not relent in his campaign for democracy and justice. In 2013, he spoke out openly against the ruling African National Congress (ANC). In May of that year, and as Nelson Mandela’s lung trouble flared again, Tutu regretted that the country had not prepared itself for his passing (Mandela would eventually die in December at the age of 94): “We should be preparing ourselves by erecting a memorial to him, but not a physical one. The best memorial to Nelson Mandela would be a democracy in which every single person in South Africa knew that they mattered, and where other people knew that each person mattered.” More specifically, he lamented the fact that “today South Africa is the most unequal society in the world” and condemned what he called “the levels of violence” in the country. In his twilight years, Archbishop Tutu became one of the most fervent defenders of LGBT rights on the continent and was wont to respond to critics’ taunt that he was defending sinners with the reminder that “We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.”

In terms of the singularity of his vision, his soft but unyielding passion for liberty and justice, his blending of the political with the clerical, and the overall comprehensiveness of his ideological vision, Archbishop Tutu was one-off. As we join the Rainbow Nation (his coinage) to mourn the passing of its most distinguished son, we urge its leaders to dedicate themselves to a consummation of the ideals that he dedicated his life to. To his compatriots, we commend one of his sayings: “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

Rest in peace, Archbishop Tutu.