IT must be hard to walk in the shadow of Nelson Mandela, a man described as South Africa’s “combined Washington, Lincoln and Gandhi,” but Archbishop Desmond Tutu held his own against his country’s foremost icon. If Mandela was the greatest black South African political leader and acknowledged as the father of his nation, Archbishop Tutu was the moral force that opposed the apartheid system, which promoted racial segregation and white minority rule in South Africa. While Mandela was still imprisoned in Robben Island, Tutu prominently led the anti-apartheid movement as a human rights activist.
As a man of the cloth serving as the Archbishop of Cape Town, the primate of the Anglican church in Southern Africa, he wielded his considerable influence to promote human and political rights of the majority black South Africans. After Mandela was released from prison in 1990, the two prominent leaders created the formidable partnership that successfully confronted and trounced the apartheid system, which had ruled their country for decades. They consolidated their efforts and dealt with the apartheid regime gradually but effectively.
Their lives and struggles personified the indomitability of the human spirit and the triumph of patience and fortitude over inequity and repression. In one street protest that Tutu led, the police violently confronted the protesters and surrounded them with dogs. Tutu asked the demonstrators and the crowd to kneel and pray, which restrained the police from committing further atrocities. He proved that peaceful and non-violent actions could tame brutal state power.
As a young priest, he assigned females to serve in the mass and allowed them to actively join the religious activities. Much later, as archbishop, he ordained female priests in the Anglican Church and appointed gay priests to senior positions. He exalted black theology to great heights. In a conference paper he presented at the Union Theological Seminary in 1973, Tutu said: “Black theology seeks to make sense of the life experience of the black man, which is largely black suffering at the hands of rampant white racism… Black theology has to do with whether it is possible to be black and continue to be Christian; it is to ask on whose side is God; it is to be concerned with the humanization of man, because those who ravage our humanity dehumanize themselves in the process…” Tutu made no bones of his contempt of corrupt and despotic black leaders in the African continent. After visiting Zaire, he publicly lamented that the corrupt and oppressive rule of Mobotu Sese Seko was galling to fellow blacks from Africa. He also condemned the authoritarian regime of Idi Amin in Uganda and Nigeria’s suppression of Biafra. He embraced “liberation theology” and propagated “black theology,” which he described as not mere academic and detached theological concepts but a “gut level theology, relating to the real concerns, the life and death issues of the black man.”
And he lived what he preached. In 1975, he was installed as the first black dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg, which made big news at that time. But instead of residing in the official dean’s house in the rich men’s suburbs in Johannesburg, he elected to live in the township of Soweto outside the city, which was largely an impoverished area for the blacks. His congregation was racially mixed and he used this to reinforce his dream that someday a racially equal and de-segregated society will eventually emerge in South Africa. Tutu effectively used his pulpit to hammer on divisive social issues, particularly the apartheid system, which ruined the country. He displeased the political authorities when he released a statement urging the international community to boycott South Africa until it ends the apartheid. Tutu was committed to non-violence in securing racial equality for his people. Like Gandhi and Martin Luther King who were his heroes, he employed civil disobedience to force the white government in South Africa to grant equal rights to the black majority.
He knew it would be long in coming but he did not lose hope. In 1985 he expressed deep disillusion that change might not be in sight. He said: “I have no hope of real change from this government unless they are forced.… Only the action of the international community by applying pressure can save us…. I call the international community to apply punitive sanctions against this government to help us establish a new South Africa—non-racial, democratic, participatory and just.”
While Mandela was still in prison, Tutu probably got the highest praise when the former referred to Tutu as “public enemy No. 1 for the powers that be.” He indeed was. Tutu led marches against the regime. He called for people to boycott their jobs and asked them to go on a national strike against apartheid. He called on foreign governments to impose economic sanctions against his own country. He met with foreign heads of state (US, UK, Japan, Germany, and several others) to lobby their support and gave speeches around the world to expose the evils of apartheid and gain sympathies for his cause. Later, after noting Tutu’s invaluable contributions to protect the people’s welfare, Mandela referred to him as “the people’s archbishop”.
After the end of the apartheid, Mandela appointed Tutu as the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to resolve abuses and violations committed by both sides, but mostly by whites against the blacks during the long period of apartheid. The goal was to start the healing process, promote reconciliation and build peace and justice. His work as the head of the TRC was documented in his well-acclaimed book, No Future Without Forgiveness published in 1999. It emphasized that justice should be tempered with mercy.
Tutu’s life chronicles a life of achievements. Mandela had awarded Tutu the “Order for Meritorious Service,” his country’s highest honor. Among the many distinguished honors he received were the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award in 1983, Nobel Prize in 1984, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Award in 2012, the Templeton Prize in 2013, and many others.
Tutu died on December 26, 2021 at a ripe age of 90 in Cape Town. He lived a long and full life. He outlived Mandela who died on December 5, 2013. And Tutu lived his dream, which he longingly held when he said: “There is a great deal of goodwill still in our country between the races. Let us not be so wanton in destroying it. We can live together as one people, one family, black and white together.” A multi-racial general election was held in April 1994 leading to the formation of a government of national unity that ended the apartheid. South Africa’s experience is now a model for other countries to adopt to transition from apartheid to racial equality. Where they are now, Tutu and Mandela can lead the chorus of black and white angels singing love and peace among all people of the world.