imago
Sad news at Christmas! Apartheid hero and Nobel laureate Bishop Tutu is dead! Whether it had anything to do with the omicron wave rampant in South Africa is unclear!
Nobel Laureate Died!
South African anti-apartheid campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu has died. The archbishop emeritus died at the age of 90, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Sunday. He expressed “deep sorrow on behalf of all South Africans at the death” of Tutu, the head of state said.
Tutu was still considered the moral voice of his country even in his old age. Lately, however, the Nobel Peace Prize winner known as cheerful and energetic with a winning smile rarely appeared in public. In May, he showed himself to his countrymen as he received the Covid vaccine with his wife, Leah. Sitting in a wheelchair, he waved at the cameras – an image that was hard to reconcile with the feisty man who once captivated the world with his sharp criticism of South Africa’s apartheid regime. He was last seen in public at the celebrations for his 90th birthday.
Tutu worked with Mandela
Tutu, born in Klerksdorp near Johannesburg on October 7, 1931, was ordained an Anglican priest at the age of 30 after first working as a teacher and studying theology at King’s College in London, among other institutions. In 1984 Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to the apartheid regime in South Africa. In the same year he became the first black bishop of Johannesburg and called for an embargo against the white minority government.
Tutu received one of his most important commissions after the end of apartheid: starting in 1996, he led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which held public hearings on atrocities committed during apartheid. The bishop became a voice of reconciliation during this time and coined the phrase “rainbow nation” for South Africa.