Desmond Tutu, who rose to prominence as a human rights activist, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and has been hospitalized several times in recent years for treatment-related infections.
South African President speaks of a unique leader and a new chapter of mourning for the loss of another famous person who made a decisive contribution to the country’s liberation.
“The death of Honorary Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a new chapter of mourning in our country’s farewell to the generation of prominent South Africans who bequeathed a liberated South Africa to us,” the president added.
Ramaphosa called Tutu “a man of extraordinary intelligence, righteous and invincible against the forces of apartheid,” but who was “also gentle and vulnerable in his compassion for those who suffered from oppression, injustice and violence” both under apartheid and under oppressors around the world. … …
The Anglican Archbishop was weakened for several months during which he did not speak in public, but he still welcomed the journalists who accompanied each of his recent travels, such as when he went to get the COVID-19 vaccine at the hospital or when he turned in October. 90 years old.
Desmond Tutu rose to prominence during the darkest hours of the racist regime in South Africa, when he organized peaceful marches against segregation as a priest, calling for international sanctions against the white regime in Pretoria.
With the rise of democracy, 10 years later, a man who called South Africa a “rainbow nation” led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to turn a page of racial hatred, but his own hopes were quickly dashed. The black majority won the right to vote, but remain largely poor.
After the fight against apartheid, Tutu made a commitment to reconcile his country and protect human rights.
Against the Church of England hierarchy, he defended homosexuals and the right to abortion, opening up the right to suicide assistance as a new front in recent years.
Tutu also criticized the extremes of his party’s government, the African National Congress (ANC), namely the mistakes of former President Thabo Mbeki in the fight against AIDS, and even his friend Nelson Mandela did not escape his criticism.
In 2013, he pledged not to vote again for the party that defeated apartheid again.
Desmond Tutu, who was born in a small mining town southwest of Johannesburg, suffered from polio as a child, wanted to become a doctor, but gave up due to lack of funds and eventually became a teacher, refusing to participate in the protest against the inadequate education intended for blacks.
He eventually entered seminary and was ordained a priest at the age of 30.
He studied and taught in the UK and Lesotho, settling in Johannesburg in 1975 before being appointed Archbishop of Cape Town and head of the Anglican community in his country.
In 1955, he married Leah, with whom he had four children.
Despite diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and several hospitalizations, he gradually retired from public life, to the end defending the dream of a multiracial and egalitarian South Africa.
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