Archbishop Desmond Tutu changed the world, the former Malawi President Dr Joyce Banda has said following the death of the Nobel Peace prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa.
In a message posted on her official Facebook Page, Dr Joyce Banda expressed her sadness at the loss of Tutu whom she described as a distinguished son “Today the 26th of December, 2021, South Africa, the continent and the entire world has lost a distinguished son. A Man of God and a gallant fighter for Human Rights”. said Banda
She went further to say “In September of 2014, I was invited by the Starky Hearing Foundation based in Minnesota, USA to speak at their Annual Conference on Disability Matters particularly the Deaf. I was privileged to have a meeting with him at the Starky Hearing Foundation over lunch. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and myself were speakers. He was a man gifted with great wisdom. I will never forget how a single meeting over lunch impacted me forever”.
Archbishop Tutu was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end apartheid, the policy that saw racial segregation and discrimination against the black majority in South Africa by the white minority government.
He was credited with coming up with the term Rainbow Nation to describe the ethnic mix of post-apartheid South Africa, but in his latter years he expressed regret that the nation had not come together as he had hoped.
Many South Africans today will remember Tutu’s personal courage, and the clarity of his moral fury. But as those who knew him best have so often reminded us, Tutu was always, emphatically, the voice of hope. And it is that hope, that optimism, accompanied, so often, by his trademark giggles and cackles, that seems likely to shape the way the world remembers, and celebrates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Ordained as a priest in 1960, Tutu went on to serve as bishop of Lesotho from 1976-78, assistant bishop of Johannesburg and rector of a parish in Soweto. He became Bishop of Johannesburg in 1985, and was appointed the first black Archbishop of Cape Town the following year. He used his high-profile role to speak out against oppression of black people in his home country, always saying his motives were religious and not political.
After Mandela became South Africa’s first black president in 1994, Tutu was appointed by him to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to investigate crimes committed by both whites and blacks during the apartheid era.
He was also credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation to describe the ethnic mix of post-apartheid South Africa, but in his latter years he expressed regret that the nation had not coalesced in the way in which he had dreamt.
