Many human rights defenders and civil society organisations (CSOs) have promised to continue to emulate Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s inspiring sign of peace, hope and justice across the world.
The anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner passed away on 26 December, 2021, at the age of 90.
He was globally recognised and celebrated for his intolerance towards bad governance and inhuman treatment.
‘South Africa and the world have lost one of the great spirits and moral giants of our age’, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation said in a statement.
‘Tutu was a living embodiment of faith in action, speaking boldly against racism, injustice, corruption, and oppression, not just in apartheid South Africa but wherever in the world he saw wrongdoing, especially when it impacted the most vulnerable and voiceless in society.
‘We, at the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, mourn his passing and extend deep sympathy to Mrs Nomalizo Leah Tutu, siblings Trevor Thamsanqa Tutu, Naomi Nontombi Tutu, Theresa Thandeka Tutu, Mpho Tutu van Furth and their families.
‘We commit ourselves to continue telling the story and emulating the example of this son of Africa who became an inspiring sign of peace, hope and justice across the world’.
The Desmond Tutu HIV Centre and Health Foundation said Tutu was fondly known as ‘The Arch’ and was inspirational to the work of the foundation.
‘The Archbishop’s unyielding stance on the importance of human rights, including the right to health care for all people regardless of ideology, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, social status or condition, has been a guiding principle’, the foundation said.
‘In the early part of the rollout of HIV treatment, he was a strong protagonist for equitable access to care, vigorously denounced the AIDS denialism rife at the time and called the stigmatisation and exclusion of people living with HIV a “new apartheid” ’.
Also, Amnesty International (AI) said Tutu worked with the rights organisation to champion the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, supported its campaigns against death penalty and the Arms Trade Treaty.
‘The world has lost a dedicated human rights champion. Archbishop Desmond Tutu refused to sit and watch injustice meted out against the people of South Africa by the apartheid government at the time when it was costly to stand up against the regime’, AI’s Director for Southern Africa, Deprose Muchena, said in a statement.
‘He also stood up for the oppressed people elsewhere around the world, ensuring that he spoke out for their freedom’.
In a tweet from its verified handle, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), described Tutu as an ‘irreplaceable iroko’ and a ‘bridge builder’.
‘CDD mourns the passing away of #DesmondTutu, Africa’s leading peacebuilder and anti-apartheid crusader! Indeed, an irreplaceable Iroko has fallen’, the organisation tweeted.
‘Rest in peace to a great leader, a democrat, and a bridge builder! Condolences to @SouthAfrica’.
For their part, Sikika Afrika Initiative said Tutu was an embodiment of freedom, equality, human rights, peace, justice, forgiveness, integrity, hope, faith and optimism.
‘We join everyone in mourning the passing away of #ArchbishopEmeritusDesmondTutu. Indeed a giant [moral] compass has gone’, the civic platform tweeted.
‘On a more personal note, I have lost a dear friend. I always felt so privileged to be in his presence’, the founder of Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Mo Ibrahim, said in a statement.
‘…Africa lost one of its greatest sons, a man who spent his entire life working on behalf of others and who was a tireless champion of human rights’, the foundation said in the statement.
‘Archbishop Tutu’s consistent determination to speak truth to power inspired people around the world’.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation also praised the archbishop’s legacy.
‘His contributions to struggles against injustice, locally and globally, are matched only by the depth of his thinking about the making of liberatory futures for human societies. He was an extraordinary human being. A thinker. A leader. A shepherd’, it said.
Tutu, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in resolving and ending apartheid, was educated in South African mission schools at which his father taught.
Though he wanted a medical career, Tutu was unable to afford training and instead became a schoolteacher in 1955.
In 1962 he moved to London, where in 1966 he obtained an M.A. from King’s College London. From 1972 to 1975 he served as an associate director for the World Council of Churches. He was appointed dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg in 1975, the first Black South African to hold that position.
During South Africa’s moves toward democracy in the early 1990s, Tutu propagated the idea of South Africa as ‘the Rainbow Nation’, and he continued to comment on events with varying combinations of trenchancy and humour.
Tutu was a recipient of the Templeton Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.
Photo source: Desmond Tutu
