Lifestyle/Culture
The Most Rev. Desmond Tutu - Obituary By Stanley Uys and Dan van der Vat
IN 1948, when the apartheid regime was voted into office in South Africa, Desmond Tutu was 17. It was not until the late 1960s, as the future Anglican archbishop of Cape Town approached 40, that the concept of black liberation caused him to widen his horizons, and it was only in the mid-70s that he aligned himself with the liberation struggle. Tutu, who has died aged 90, developed late in this respect because at first he was wholly a man of the church. He never wanted to enter politics: “No, I’m not smart enough. I can’t think quickly on my feet. I also think it’s a very harsh environment. I’m a crybaby … not tough enough for the hurly-burly of politics,” he claimed, perhaps disingenuously. Church and state were locked in combat, however, and choices had to be made. Anglicans, Catholics, Methodists and others condemned apartheid, while the Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa defended it. When Tutu became the first black Anglican dean of Johannesburg in 1975 he was, according to his biographer, Shirley du Boulay, “less politically aware than one might have expected. His contribution to the liberation of his people [until then] had been in becoming a good priest.” Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, a predominantly Afrikaner farming town 100 miles south-west of Johannesburg. His father, Zachariah, a Xhosa, was headteacher of the local Methodist primary school. His mother, Aletta, a Mosotho, was a domestic servant. The children were all given both European and African names and spoke Xhosa, Sotho and Tswana. Later, Tutu also learned Afrikaans and English. At the age of 14 he contracted tuberculosis
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and over the course of 20 months in hospital he developed a lifelong friendship with Father Trevor Huddleston, the Anglican missionary priest from Britain who, as one of the most prominent opponents of apartheid inside and outside South Africa, became his religious inspiration and mentor. Tutu obtained a teaching diploma in 1953 and a BA degree by correspondence a year later. He taught at high schools in Johannesburg (1954) and Krugersdorp (1955-57), before leaving to train at St Peter’s theological college, Rosettenville. Ordained a priest in 1961, he served in an African township. His entry into the liberation struggle followed the years he spent abroad. From 1962 until 1966 he was in London, where he secured a master’s in theology at King’s College. He served as a curate in Golders Green and at Bletchingley, Surrey, where initially standoffish Tories took him to their hearts. After teaching at the Federal Theological Seminary in the town of Alice in the Eastern Cape province, Tutu went back to Britain from 1972 until 1975 as associate director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches. From 1976 to 1978 he served as Bishop of Lesotho, returning to Johannesburg to take up the high-profile post of General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), from which the pro-apartheid Afrikaans churches had cut themselves loose. That appointment effectively marked the end of Tutu’s political innocence. He had seen the uglier side of Africa, and although his travels separated him from the struggle in his own country, they also moulded him, giving him a wider outlook, more selfconfidence and a growing revulsion against race discrimination. In spite of passport restrictions, in the early 80s Tutu was probably the most travelled churchman in the world after Pope John Paul II. Britain was always a sanctuary for him. The turning DAWN
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