Dharamshala, 27th December: Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and outspoken opponent of apartheid in South Africa, died on Sunday at the age of 90. The loss of the man regarded as the country’s moral conscience was lamented by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, South Africans, world leaders, and people around the world.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote a letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s daughter, Rev. Mpho Tutu, as soon as he received word that his “respected elder spiritual brother and good friend” Archbishop Desmond Tutu had died.
On Twitter, Sikyong Penpa Tsering writes: Tibetans mourn alongside millions around the world the demise of one of the greatest apostles of peace and non-violence, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The light he represents will continue to shine as will his eternal message of peace, love, and non-violence. Prayers and condolences.
Tutu worked relentlessly, nonviolently, and passionately to eliminate apartheid, South Africa’s horrific, decades-long subjugation of its Black majority, which ended in 1994.
As the first Black bishop of Johannesburg and subsequently as the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the cheerful, blunt-spoken priest utilized his pulpit, as well as many public rallies, to galvanize the public opinion against racial unfairness, both at home and abroad.
The small Tutu, dubbed “the Arch,” became a towering figure in his country’s history, comparable to fellow Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela, a prisoner under white authority who went on to become South Africa’s first Black president. Tutu and Mandela both shared a desire to make South Africa a better, more egalitarian place.
Tutu died quietly at Cape Town’s Oasis Frail Care Center, according to his trust. After being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997, he had been hospitalized multiple times till 2015.
The Tutu trust said “He turned his own misfortune into a teaching opportunity to raise awareness and reduce the suffering of others,”
Barack Obama praised Tutu as “a moral compass for me and so many others. A universal spirit, Archbishop Tutu was grounded in the struggle for liberation and justice in his own country, but also concerned with injustice everywhere. He never lost his impish sense of humor and willingness to find humanity in his adversaries.”
Before Tutu’s burial, a seven-day mourning phase in Cape Town is scheduled, including a two-day lying in state, an ecumenical ceremony, and an Anglican requiem mass at St. George’s Cathedral. The iconic Table Mountain in the southern city will be illuminated in purple, the color of Tutu’s archbishop’s robes.
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