Day: December 27, 2021

JOHANNESBURG — Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s legacy is reverberating among young South Africans, many of whom were not born when the clergyman battled apartheid and sought full rights for the nation’s Black majority.

Tutu, who died Sunday at the age of 90, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for those efforts.

Even though they did not know much about him, some young South Africans told The Associated Press on Monday that they understood his role as one of the most prominent figures to help their country become a democracy.

Zinhle Gamede, 16, said she found out about Tutu’s passing on social media and has learned more about him over the past day.

“At first I only knew that he was an archbishop. I really did not know much else,” Gamede said.

She said Tutu’s death had inspired her to learn more about South Africa’s history, especially the struggle against white minority rule.

“I think that people who fought for our freedom are great people. We are in a better place because of them. Today I am living my life freely, unlike in the olden days where there was no freedom,” she said.

Following the end of apartheid in 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that documented atrocities during apartheid and sought to promote national reconciliation. Tutu also became one of the world’s most prominent religious leaders to champion LGBTQ rights.

“As a gay person, it is rare to hear people from the church speaking openly about gay issues, but I found out about him through gay activists who sometimes use his quotes during campaigns,” said Lesley Morake, 25. “That is how I knew about him, and that is what I will remember about him.”

Tshepo Nkatlo, 32, said he is focusing on the positive things he hears about Tutu, instead of some negative sentiments he saw on social media.

“One of the things I picked up on Facebook and Twitter was that some people were criticizing him for the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) because there are still many issues regarding the TRC,” Nkatlo said, referring to some who say Tutu should have been tougher on whites who perpetrated abuses under apartheid and should have ordered that they be prosecuted.

South Africa is holding a week of mourning for Tutu. Bells rang at midday Monday from St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Cape Town to honor him. The bells at “the people’s cathedral,” where Tutu worked to unite South Africans of all races against apartheid, will toll for 10 minutes at noon for five days to mark Tutu’s life.

“We ask all who hear the bells to pause their busy schedules for a moment in tribute” to Tutu, the current archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, said. Anglican churches across South Africa will also ring their bells at noon this week, and the Angelus prayer will be recited.

Several services in South Africa were being planned to honor Tutu’s life, as tributes came in from around the world.

Tutu’s coffin will be displayed Friday at the cathedral in Cape Town to allow the public to file past the casket, “which will reflect the simplicity with which he asked to be buried,” Makgoba said in a statement. On Friday night Tutu’s body will “lie alone in the cathedral which he loved.”

A requiem Mass will be celebrated Saturday, and, according to Tutu’s wishes, he will be cremated and his ashes placed in the cathedral’s mausoleum, church officials said Monday.

In addition, an ecumenical and interfaith service will be held for Tutu on Thursday in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.

South Africans are laying flowers at the cathedral, in front of Tutu’s home in Cape Town’s Milnerton area and in front of his former home in Soweto.

President Cyril Ramaphosa visited Tutu’s home Monday in Cape Town where he paid his respects to Tutu’s widow, Leah.

“He knew in his soul that good would triumph over evil, that justice would prevail over iniquity, and that reconciliation would prevail over revenge and recrimination. He knew that apartheid would end, that democracy would come,” Ramaphosa said Sunday night in a nationally broadcast address.

“He knew that our people would be free. By the same measure, he was convinced, even to the end of his life, that poverty, hunger and misery can be defeated; that all people can live together in peace, security and comfort,” Ramaphosa said and added that South Africa’s flags will be flown at half-staff this week.

“May we follow in his footsteps,” Ramaphosa said. “May we, too, be worthy inheritors of the mantle of service, of selflessness, of courage, and of principled solidarity with the poor and marginalized.”

Source: Voice of America

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa is observing a week of mourning leading up to the Saturday funeral of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who died Sunday at the age of 90.

Each day at noon, the bells at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town will toll for 10 minutes. A guestbook has been set up at the cathedral for mourners to sign.

Cape Town’s city hall and Table Mountain will also be lit up in purple each night until the funeral.

Tutu, a Nobel peace laureate was known worldwide for anti-apartheid activism and as a champion of human rights, is due to lie in state at the cathedral Friday.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Tutu’s death Sunday.

“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” he said.

Tutu was far more than a spiritual leader.

He spent his life advocating for civil rights and speaking out against injustice, corruption and oppression.

Thabo Makgoba is the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town.

“He wanted every human being on Earth to experience the freedom, the peace, and the joy that all of us could enjoy if we truly respected one another. And because he worshiped to God, he feared no one. He named wrong wherever he saw it and by whoever it was committed,” Makgoba said.

Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his activism against South Africa’s racist apartheid regime.

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Tutu housed him on his first night of freedom.

The archbishop then presented Mandela to the public as the country’s first Black president in 1994.

Tutu was at the helm in the country’s healing process after apartheid, chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where many horrific accounts of injustice were heard.

Despite the hardships he confronted, Tutu is remembered for his peaceful activism and ability to forgive.

Parliamentarian Patricia De Lille spoke to reporters about her memories of the Arch, as he was known.

“Humor and a great sense of timing were amongst the Arch’s greatest assets. He had an extraordinary ability to defuse tension, contain anger, and remind people of their human essence. He used humor to convey important messages. And had that particular, that we all know, contagious love,” she said.

Source: Voice of America

Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed announced Monday that he was suspending Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, a day after the two men sparred over long-delayed elections in the troubled Horn of Africa nation.

“The president decided to suspend Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble and stop his powers since he was linked with corruption,” the office of the president said in a statement, accusing the premier of interfering with an investigation into a land grabbing case.

Relations between the president, better known as Farmajo, and Roble have long been frosty, with the latest development raising fresh fears for Somalia’s stability as it struggles to hold elections.

On Sunday, Roble accused the president of sabotaging the electoral process, after Farmajo withdrew the prime minister’s mandate to organise the elections and called for the creation of a new committee to “correct” the shortcomings.

Roble, who has not responded to Monday’s suspension announcement, said Farmajo did not want to hold “a credible election in this country”.

Farmajo in turn has accused Roble of trying to influence a probe into a scandal involving army-owned land after the premier sacked the defence minister and replaced him on Sunday.

“The prime minister has pressurised the minister of defence to divert the investigations of the case relating to the grabbed public land,” Monday’s statement said.

Somalia’s elections have been hamstrung by delays for several months.

– US ‘deeply concerned’ –

In April, pro-government and opposition fighters opened fire in the streets of Mogadishu after Farmajo extended his term without holding fresh elections.

The constitutional crisis was only defused when Farmajo reversed the term extension and Roble brokered a timetable to a vote.

But in the months that followed, a bitter rivalry between the men derailed the election again, alarming international observers.

Farmajo and Roble only agreed to bury the hatchet in October, and issued a unified call for the glacial election process to accelerate.

Somalia has not held a one-man one-vote election in 50 years and its polls follow a complex indirect model.

Elections for the upper house have concluded in all states and voting for the lower house began in early November.

But the appointment of a president still appears to be a long way off, straining ties with Western allies who want to see the process reach a peaceful conclusion.

On Sunday, the United States said it was “deeply concerned by the continuing delays and by the procedural irregularities that have undermined the credibility of the process”.

Analysts say the election impasse has distracted from Somalia’s larger problems, most notably the violent Al-Shabaab insurgency.

The Al-Qaeda allies were driven out of Mogadishu a decade ago but retain control of swathes of countryside and continue to stage deadly attacks in the capital and elsewhere.

Source: Seychelles News Agency