She is the last of the great icons of the fight against apartheid: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the conscience of South Africa but also a great mischievous and powerful laugh, died Sunday at the age of 90.
Until recently, the Nobel Peace Prize winner imposed his small purple silhouette and his legendary outspokenness to denounce injustices and chip away at all powers.
President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed “his deep sadness” at the death of this “unequaled patriot”, “a man of extraordinary intelligence, integrity and invincible against the forces of apartheid”, who leaves a widow, “Mama Leah ”, and their four children.
This death represents “a new chapter of mourning in the farewell of our nation to a generation of exceptional South Africans who left us a liberated South Africa”, he added, a month after the death of FW de Klerk, the country’s last white president.
After the advent of democracy in 1994, and the election of his friend Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu gave South Africa the nickname “Rainbow Nation”. He had chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which he hoped would help turn the page on racial hatred.
“The Arch,” as South Africans affectionately call it, had been weakened for several months. Long suffering from prostate cancer, he probably died of old age, peacefully at 7 am Sunday, according to several of his relatives interviewed by AFP.
He no longer spoke in public but greeted the cameras present at each of his travels, smiling and mischievous glance, as during his vaccination against COVID or in October at the ceremony celebrating his 90 years.
A prayer was organized at St George’s Cathedral, his former parish. Passers-by come to lay flowers and collect themselves.
“It’s so sad,” sighs to AFP Miriam Mokwadi, a 67-year-old retired nurse. “Tutu was a real hero for us, he fought for us”, she said moved, holding her little girl by the hand.
Others followed one another in front of his house in Cape Town, or the one that the Archbishop had kept in Soweto, a township of Johannesburg, according to AFP journalists.
“Immeasurable” loss
In mourning, South African cricketers also wore a black armband on the first day of a major competition against India, near Johannesburg.
“We mourn his disappearance”, reacted the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, but let us celebrate “also the life of a deeply spiritual man”.
“He feared no one (…) He challenged the systems which demeaned humanity”, he recalled, while forgiving when “the authors of evil knew a real change of heart”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “deeply saddened” and the Mandela Foundation called his loss “immeasurable”: “He was an extraordinary human being. A thinker. A leader. A shepherd “.
Desmond Tutu had made a name for himself during the worst hours of the racist apartheid regime. While a priest, he organized peaceful marches against segregation and pleaded for international sanctions against the white regime in Pretoria.
Her dress saved her from prison. His nonviolent fight was crowned with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
After apartheid, faithful to his commitments, he denounced the excesses of the ANC government, from mistakes in the fight against AIDS to corruption scandals.
In 2013, he even promised to no longer vote for the apartheid gravedigger party: “I did not fight to drive out people who took themselves for shoddy gods and replace them with others who think they are.” Also “.
Among his other fights, he also defended homosexuals – “I would not worship a homophobic God (…) I would refuse to go to a homophobic paradise” – and campaigned for the right to assisted suicide.
The last time the country heard from him was on 1er November. Out of sight, he had voted in local elections.