Desmond Tutu: The rights campaigner who said very ‘undiplomatic’ things

Retired from the pulpit in 1997, mostly after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer a year earlier, Tutu continued with activism, raising his profile beyond the borders of South Africa.

In 2007, former South African President Nelson Mandela, himself an anti-apartheid icon, named Tutu among the Elders— a group of statesmen who said they would work to solve global problems.

This group also included former US President Jimmy Carter, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Indian prominent activist Ela Bhatt and Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland.

The Elders went on commenting on global issues such as the war in Darfur, the Iraqi war, war on terrorism, climate change and Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict.

Tutu’s death means the group is now decimated with only Ms Bhatta, President Carter and Robinson still actively involved.

Nonetheless, the Elders became a platform on which Tutu spoke, albeit controversially, on sensitive subjects.

At his 85th birthday in 2016, Tutu wrote a commentary in The Washington Post, calling for the right to die with dignity.

He said: “Dying people should have the right to choose how and when they leave Mother Earth. I believe that, alongside the wonderful palliative care that exists, their choices should include a dignified assisted death.”

As an African son, Tutu’s commentary on death broke taboo: folks hardly spoke of it at fireside stories and nobody really imagines he could be next to die, let alone how.

In 2011, Tutu railed at the South Africa government of Jacob Zuma for refusing to grant a visa to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibet in China who has been living in exile in India since 1959.

The Dalai Lama, whose real name is Tenzin Gyatso, was due to travel to Johannesburg.

The South African government, under Pressure from Beijing, refused him the visa and he cancelled the trip, arguing it was “inconvenient” on the South African authorities.

Tutu labelled the decision by Zuma’s government as worse than apartheid-era regime, but the close ties between Zuma’s administration and Beijing meant admitting the Dalai Lama, also a Nobel laureate, could be misinterpreted to mean South Africa supporting a leader considered a rebel in China.

Later, Tutu and the Dalai Lama jointly authored the Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, reflecting on things that can bring happiness to the world, including acceptance of diversity.

The two leaders maintained close ties, in spite of believing in different routes to eternity.

On Tutu’s birthday on October 7 this year, the Dalai Lama reflected on their friendship in a video message:

“We religious people should follow people like Bishop Tutu who lives in complete peace. We joke with each other about what we believe,” the Dalai Lama observed.

“I believe in life after life but not in a creator. Bishop Tutu believes in a creator. So sometimes he teases me that he is ready to go to heaven, but I may go to a different place. Anyway, you see, we are both totally dedicated to finding peace of mind, and through peace of mind, we try our best to bring about peace in the world.”

Tutu wasn’t done with rubbing into the global status quo. In September 2012, he wrote a commentary in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, criticizing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President George W Bush for “immorality” of their invasion of Iraq under a false alarm the country was harbouring weapons of mass destruction.

“The then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us,” he argued in the piece.

“On what grounds do we decide that Robert Mugabe should go the International Criminal Court, Tony Blair should join the international speakers' circuit, [Al-Qaeda leader Osama] bin Laden should be assassinated, but Iraq should be invaded, not because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Bush's chief supporter, Mr Blair, confessed last week, but in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein?”

The invasion never found the dangerous weapons but Tutu’s call that the two be “made to answer” for the crimes of humanity in Iraq, where some estimates said as many as 400,000 people died from 2003 to 2011, fell on deaf ears.

Born on October 7 in 1931 in Klerksdorp Transvaal, Desmond Mpilo Tutu grew up to be a schoolteacher like his father. But he had been influenced into priesthood and activism from as early as age nine.

In 1957, he quit teaching in protest after the apartheid regime restricted schooling for black children.

He joined the Anglican clergy and was ordained priest in 1961. He became the first black dean of St Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg in 1975.

In 1976, he was consecrated Bishop of Lesotho.

Married to one wife, Leah, for 66 years with whom they had four children, Tutu defended homosexuals with his heart, rubbing into governments across Africa to which the subject is deemed taboo.

In 2013, he told an audience he “would rather go to hell than a homophobic heaven.”

And an Anglican preacher in Nigeria, Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma, even declared him “spiritually dead” for supporting protection of gays and lesbians.

Although his native South Africa became the first African country to legalise same-sex unions, and the Anglican Church one of the first global denominations to allow same sex priests, he often called out governments as far as in Kampala for attempting to pass a law against homosexuality (which was eventually never passed by the Ugandan parliament).

Until his death, Tutu had been ‘killed’ several times on social media, often emerging with a public statement to confirm he wasn’t gone yet.

In the last four years or so, he had been in and out of hospitals treat a recurrent infection.

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, he became the second black south African to win the iconic prize after his mentor Chief Albert Lutuli in 1960, for their non-violent campaign against apartheid, a campaign which saw many black south Africans jailed.

Tutu himself was detained and released on various occasions for leading protests against the apartheid regime.

Still, he managed to stay outside long jail terms, shielded by the cloth.

After end of apartheid, he chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a mission meant to reflect on past deeds of the White minority rule in the country and institute policies that could unite the country and stop a repeat.

And although his last report of the Commission was in 2003, it is debatable whether Africa’s richest country per capita has avoided any sort of discrimination, economic or social.

The World Bank says South Africa has one of the widest wealth gaps in the world, between the richest and poorest folks.