Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African cleric and activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid.

In 1984, Tutu became the second South African to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Tutu was elected and ordained the first black South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).

Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is currently the chairman of The Elders. Tutu is vocal in his defence of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed.

Tutu also campaigns to fight AIDS, poverty and racism. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, and the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005. Tutu has also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

Early years

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal on 7 October 1931, the second of the three children of Zacheriah Zililo Tutu and his wife, Aletta, although the only son.

[2] Tutu's family moved to Johannesburg when he was 12 years old where his father was a teacher and his mother a cleaner and cook at a school for the blind. Here he met Trevor Huddleston who was a parish priest in the black slum of Sophiatown. "One day", said Tutu, "I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in a priest's clothing walked past. As he passed us he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn't believe my eyes - a white man who greeted a black working class woman!"

Although Tutu wanted to become a physician, his family could not afford the training, and he followed his father's footsteps into teaching. Tutu studied at the Pretoria Bantu Normal College from 1951 through 1953, and went on to teach at Johannesburg Bantu High School and at Munsienville High School in Mogale City. However, he resigned following the passage of the Bantu Education Act, in protest of the poor educational prospects for black South Africans.

He continued his studies, this time in theology, at St Peter's Theology College in Rosettenville and in 1960 was ordained as an Anglican priest following in the footsteps of his mentor and fellow activist, Trevor Huddleston.

Tutu then travelled to King's College London, (1962–1966), where he received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Theology. During this time he worked as a part-time curate, first at St Albans Cathedral and then at St. Mary's in Bletchingley, Surrey. He later returned to South Africa and from 1967 until 1972 used his lectures to highlight the circumstances of the African population.

He wrote a letter to Prime Minister B.J. Vorster, in which he described the situation in South Africa as a "powder barrel that can explode at any time." The letter was never answered. He became chaplain at the University of Fort Hare in 1967, a hotbed of dissent and one of the few quality universities for African students in the southern part of Africa. From 1970 to 1972, Tutu lectured at the National University of Lesotho.

Tutu faced a difficult balancing act: voicing black discontent while leading a largely white parish. He alternated charm with challenges as he appealed to his parish's Afrikaner heritage, recalling that their forebears had endured British concentration camps.

Somewhat to the bewilderment of other black leaders, he patiently courted Vorster’s successor, P. W. Botha, explaining that even Moses continued to reason with Pharaoh. But white liberals grew nervous when Tutu called for a boycott of South African products.

[4] In 1972 Tutu returned to the UK, where he was appointed vice-director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches, at Bromley in Kent. He returned to South Africa in 1975 and was appointed Anglican Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg — the first African person to hold that position.

Personal life

On 2 July 1955, Tutu married Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, a teacher whom he had met while at college. They had four children: Trevor Thamsanqa Tutu, Theresa Thandeka Tutu, Naomi Nontombi Tutu and Mpho Andrea Tutu, all of whom attended the Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland.

His son, Trevor Tutu, caused a bombscare at East London Airport in 1989 and was arrested. In 1991 he was convicted of contravening the Civil Aviation Act by falsely claiming there had been a bomb on board a South African Airways 'plane at East London Airport. The bomb threat delayed the Johannesburg bound flight for more than three hours, costing South African Airways some R28000.

At the time Trevor Tutu announced his intention to appeal against his sentence, but failed to arrive for the appeal hearings. He forfeited his bail of R15000. He was due to begin serving his sentence in 1993, but failed to hand himself over to prison authorities. He was finally arrested in Johannesburg in August 1997. He applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was granted in 1997. He was then released from Goodwood Prison in Cape Town where he had begun serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence after a court in East London refused to grant him bail.

His daughter, Naomi Tutu, founded the Tutu Foundation for Development and Relief in Southern Africa, based in Hartford, Connecticut. She has followed in her father's footsteps as a human rights activist and is currently a program coordinator for the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee.

His other daughter, Mpho Tutu, has also followed her father's footsteps and in 2004 was ordained an Episcopal priest by her father.[9] She is also the founder and executive director of the Tutu Institute for Prayer and Pilgrimage and the chairperson of the board of the Global AIDS Alliance.[10]

In 1997, Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent successful treatment in the US. He subsequently became patron of the South African Prostate Cancer Foundation which was established in 2007.

Tutu's role during apartheid

In 1976 protests in Soweto, also known as the Soweto Riots, against the government's use of Afrikaans as a compulsory medium of instruction in black schools became a massive uprising against apartheid. From then on Tutu supported an economic boycott of his country.

He vigorously opposed the "constructive engagement" policy of the Reagan administration in the United States, which advocated "friendly persuasion". Tutu rather supported disinvestment, although it hit the poor hardest, for if disinvestment threw blacks out of work, Tutu argued, at least they would be suffering "with a purpose".

Disinvestment did succeed, causing the value of the Rand to plunge down more than 35 percent, and pressuring the government toward reform. Tutu pressed the advantage and organised peaceful marches which brought 30 000 people onto the streets of Cape Town. That was the turning point: within months, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, and apartheid was beginning to crumble.

Tutu was Bishop of Lesotho from 1976 until 1978, when he became Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches. From this position, he was able to continue his work against apartheid with agreement from nearly all churches. Tutu consistently advocated reconciliation between all parties involved in apartheid through his writings and lectures at home and abroad.

Tutu's opposition to apartheid was vigorous and unequivocal, and he was outspoken both in South Africa and abroad. He often compared apartheid to Nazism and Communism, as a result the government twice revoked his passport, and he was jailed briefly in 1980 after a protest march. It was thought by many that Tutu's increasing international reputation and his rigorous advocacy of non-violence protected him from harsher penalties.

Tutu was also harsh in his criticism of the violent tactics of some anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress and denounced terrorism and Communism. When a new constitution was proposed for South Africa in 1983 to defend against the anti-apartheid movement, Tutu helped form the National Forum Committee to fight the constitutional changes.

In 1985, Tutu was appointed the Bishop of Johannesburg before he became the first black person to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa when, on 7 September 1986, he became Archbishop of Cape Town on the retirement of former Archbishop Philip Welsford Richmond Russell. From 1987 to 1997 he was president of the All Africa Conference of Churches.

In 1989 he was invited to Birmingham, England, United Kingdom as part of Citywide Christian Celebrations. Tutu and his wife visited many establishments including the Nelson Mandela School in Sparkbrook.

Tutu was considered as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1990, however George Carey was chosen in his stead. Tutu has commented that he is "glad" that he was not chosen, as once installed in Lambeth Palace, he would have been homesick for South Africa, unhappy to be away from home during a critical time in the country's history.

In 1990, Tutu and the ex-Vice Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape Professor Jakes Gerwel founded the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust. The Trust was established to fund developmental programmes in tertiary education and provides capacity building at 17 historically disadvantaged institutions.

Tutu's work as a mediator in order to prevent all-out racial war was evident at the funeral of South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani in 1993. Tutu spurred a crowd of 120,000 to repeat after him the chants, over and over: "We will be free!", "All of us!", "Black and white together!" and finished his speech saying:

"We are the rainbow people of God! We are unstoppable! Nobody can stop us on our march to victory! No one, no guns, nothing! Nothing will stop us, for we are moving to freedom! We are moving to freedom and nobody can stop us! For God is on our side!"[14]

In 1993, he was a patron of the Cape Town Olympic Bid Committee. In 1994 he was an appointed a patron of the World Campaign Against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa, Beacon Millennium and Action from Ireland.

In 1995 he was appointed a Chaplain and Sub-Prelate of the Venerable Order of Saint John by Queen Elizabeth II,[15] and he became a patron of the American Harmony Child Foundation and the Hospice Association of Southern Africa.

Role in South Africa

Tutu is widely regarded as "South Africa's moral conscience" and has been described by former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, as "sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu's voice will always be the voice of the voiceless".

[16] Since his retirement, Tutu has worked to critique the new South African government. Tutu has been vocal in condemnation of corruption, the ineffectiveness of the ANC-led government to deal with poverty, and the recent outbreaks of xenophobic violence in townships across South Africa.

After a decade of freedom for South Africa, Tutu was honoured with the invitation to deliver the annual Nelson Mandela Foundation Lecture. On 23 November 2004 Tutu was given the address entitled, "Look to the Rock from Which You Were Hewn." This lecture, critical of the ANC-controlled government, stirred a pot of controversy between Tutu and Thabo Mbeki, calling into question "the right to criticise."

He made a stinging attack against South Africa's political elite, saying the country was "sitting on a powder keg"[20] because of its failure to alleviate poverty a decade after apartheid's end.

Tutu also said that attempts to boost black economic ownership were only benefiting an elite minority, while political "kowtowing" within the ruling ANC was hampering democracy. Tutu asked, "What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?"

Tutu criticised politicians for debating whether to give the poor an income grant of $16 (£12) a month and said the idea should be seriously considered. Tutu has often spoken in support of the Basic Income Grant (BIG) which has so far been defeated in parliament.

After the first round of volleys were fired, South African Press Association journalist, Ben Maclennan reported Tutu's response as: "Thank you Mr President for telling me what you think of me, that I am--a liar with scant regard for the truth, and a charlatan posing with his concern for the poor, the hungry, the oppressed and the voiceless."

Tutu warned of corruption shortly after the re-election of the African National Congress government of South Africa, saying that they "stopped the gravy train just long enough to get on themselves."

[22] In August 2006 Tutu publicly urged Jacob Zuma, the South African politician who had been accused of sexual crimes and corruption, to drop out of the ANC's presidential succession race. He said in a public lecture that he would not be able to hold his "head high" if Zuma became leader after being accused both of rape and corruption. In September 2006, Tutu repeated his opposition to Zuma's candidacy as ANC leader due to Zuma's "moral failings"."

The head of the Congress of South African Students condemned Tutu as a "loose cannon" and a "scandalous man" — a reaction which prompted an angry Mbeki to side with Tutu. Zuma's personal advisor responded by accusing Tutu of having double standards and "selective amnesia" (as well as being old).

Elias Khumalo claims Tutu "had found it so easy to accept the apology from the apartheid government that committed unspeakable atrocities against millions of South Africans", yet now "cannot find it in his heart to accept the apology from this humble man who has erred". Tutu and Zuma’s public criticism of each other are reflections of a turbulent time in South African politics.

Tutu has condemned the xenophobic violence which occurred throughout South Africa in May 2008. Tutu, who once intervened in the apartheid years to prevent a mob necklacing a man, said that when South Africans were fighting against apartheid they had been supported by people around the world and particularly in Africa.

Although they were poor, other Africans welcomed South Africans as refugees, and allowed liberation movements to have bases in their territory even if it meant those countries were going to be attacked by the South African Defence force. Tutu called on South Africans to end the violence as thousands of refugees have sought refuge in shelters.

Chairman of The Elders

On 18 July 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Tutu convened The Elders, a group of world leaders to contribute their wisdom, leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world's toughest problems. Mandela announced its formation in a speech on his 89th birthday. Tutu is serving as its Chair.

Other founding members include Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson, Muhammad Yunus and Aung San Suu Kyi, whose chair was left symbolically empty due to her confinement as a political prisoner in Burma.

"This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken,” Mandela commented. “Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair."

The Elders will be independently funded by a group of Founders, including Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, Ray Chambers, Michael Chambers, Bridgeway Foundation, Pam Omidyar, Humanity United, Amy Robbins, Shashi Ruia, Dick Tarlow and the United Nations Foundation.

Role in the Third World

Tutu has focused on drawing awareness to issues such as poverty, AIDS and non-democratic governments in the Third World. In particular he has focused on issues in Zimbabwe and Palestine. Tutu also led The Elders' first mission to travel to Sudan in September-October 2007 to foster peace in the Darfur crisis. "Our hope is that we can keep Darfur in the spotlight and spur on governments to help keep peace in the region," said Tutu.

Tutu has also been vocal in his condemnation of Chinese crackdowns on Tibetan activists. Tutu spoke at a candle-lit vigil on the eve of the San Francisco relay. Tutu does not support a full boycott of the Olympic Games, but he has called on the heads of States worldwide to not attend the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“For God's sake, for the sake of our children, for the sake of their children, for the sake of the beautiful people of Tibet - don't go. Tell your counterparts in Beijing you wanted to come but looked at your schedule and realised you have something else to do.”

On Israel and relationship with the Jewish community. Tutu has spoken of the significant role Jews played in the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, has voiced support for Israel's security concerns, and has spoken against tactics of suicide bombing and incitement to hatred. He is also an active and prominent proponent of the campaign for divestment from Israel, and has likened Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of Black South Africans under apartheid.

Tutu drew this comparison on a Christmas visit to Jerusalem in 1989, when he said that he is a "black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa." He made similar comments in 2002, speaking of "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about".

In 1988, the American Jewish Committee noted that Tutu was strongly critical of Israel's military and other connections with apartheid-era South Africa, and quoted him as saying that Zionism has "very many parallels with racism", on the grounds that it "excludes people on ethnic or other grounds over which they have no control".

While the AJC was critical of some of Tutu's views, it dismissed "insidious rumours" that he had made anti-Semitic statements. The precise wording of Tutu's statement has been reported differently in different sources. A subsequent Toronto Star article indicates that he described Zionism "as a policy that looks like it has many parallels with racism, the effect is the same.

Tutu preached a message of forgiveness during a 1989 trip to Israel's Yad Vashem museum, saying "Our Lord would say that in the end the positive thing that can come is the spirit of forgiving, not forgetting, but the spirit of saying: God, this happened to us.

We pray for those who made it happen, help us to forgive them and help us so that we in our turn will not make others suffer." Some found this statement offensive, with Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center calling it "a gratuitous insult to Jews and victims of Nazism everywhere."

Tutu was subjected to racial slurs during this visit to Israel, with vandals writing "Black Nazi pig" on the walls of the St. George's Cathedral in East Jerusalem, where he was staying.

In 2002, when delivering a public lecture in support of divestment, Tutu said "My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?",

He argued that Israel could never live in security by oppressing another people, and continued, "People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists.

Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust." The latter statement was criticized by some Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League. When he edited and reprinted parts of his speech in 2005, Tutu replaced the words "Jewish lobby" with "pro-Israel lobby".

In 2003, Tutu accepted the role as patron of Sabeel International, a Christian liberation theology organization which supports the concerns of the Palestinian Christian community and has actively lobbied the International Christian community for divestment from Israel.

In the same year, Archbishop Tutu received an International Advocate for Peace Award from the Cardozo School of Law, an affiliate of Yeshiva University, sparking scattered student protests and condemnations from representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Anti-Defamation League. A 2006 opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post newspaper described him as "a friend, albeit a misguided one, of Israel and the Jewish people". The Zionist Organization of America has led a campaign to protest Tutu's appearances at North American campuses.

In 2007, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota cancelled a planned speech from Tutu, on the grounds that his presence might offend some members of the local Jewish community. Many faculty members opposed this decision, and with some describing Tutu as the victim of a smear campaign.

The group Jewish Voice for Peace led an email campaign calling on St. Thomas to reconsider its decision, which the president did and invited Tutu to campus. Tutu declined the re-invitation, speaking instead at the Minneapolis Convention Center at an event hosted by Metro State University.

United Nations role

In 2003, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims He was named a member of the UN advisory panel on genocide prevention in 2006.

However, Tutu has also criticised the UN, particularly on the issue of West Papua. Tutu expressed support for the West Papuan independence movement, criticizing the United Nations' role in the takeover of West Papua by Indonesia.

Tutu said: "For many years the people of South Africa suffered under the yoke of oppression and apartheid. Many people continue to suffer brutal oppression, where their fundamental dignity as human beings is denied. One such people is the people of West Papua."

Tutu was named to head a United Nations fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, where, in a November 2006 incident the Israel Defense Forces killed 19 civilians after troops wound up a week-long incursion aimed at curbing Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel from the town.

Tutu planned to travel to the Palestinian territory to "assess the situation of victims, address the needs of survivors and make recommendations on ways and means to protect Palestinian civilians against further Israeli assaults," according to the president of the UN Human Rights Council, Luis Alfonso De Alba. Israeli officials expressed concern that the report would be biased against Israel.

Tutu cancelled the trip in mid-December, saying that Israel had refused to grant him the necessary travel clearance after more than a week of discussions.[59] However, Tutu and British academic Christine Chinkin are now due to visit the Gaza Strip via Egypt and will file a report at the September 2008 session of the Human Rights Council.

Against poverty

Before the 31st G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005, Tutu called on world leaders to promote free trade with poorer countries. Tutu also called on an end to expensive taxes on anti-AIDS drugs. Tutu said:

"I would hope they would begin to say, 'lets to do something about subsidies'. You ask the so-called-developing world, 'Why can't you people produce more?' - and they produce - and then they find that the markets have barriers that are put down or are clobbered twice over."

Following this summit, the G8 leaders promised to increase aid to developing countries by $48bn a year by 2010. Further, they gave their word of honour that they would do the best they could to achieve universal access to prevention and treatment for the millions and millions of people globally threatened by HIV/AIDS.

Before the 32nd G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in 2007, Tutu called on the G8 to focus on poverty in the Third World. Following the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, it appeared that world leaders were determined as never before to set and meet specific goals regarding extreme poverty.

Against unilateralism

In January 2003, Tutu attacked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's stance in supporting American President George W. Bush over Iraq. The alliance of Britain and the United States of America led to the outbreak of the Iraq War later that year. Tutu asked why Iraq was being singled out when Europe, India and Pakistan also had weapons of mass destruction. Tutu demanded:

"When does compassion, when does morality, when does caring come in? I just hope that one day that people will realise that peace is a far better path to follow. Many, many of us are deeply saddened to see a great country such as the United States aided and abetted extraordinarily by Britain. I have a great deal of time for your prime minister but I'm shocked to see a powerful country use its power frequently, unilaterally. The United States says you do this to the world, if you don't do it we will do it - that's sad."

In October 2004, Tutu appeared in a play at Off Broadway, New York called Guantanamo - Honor-bound to Defend Freedom. This play was highly critical of the US handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Tutu played Lord Justice Steyn, a judge who questions the legal justification of the detention regime.

In January 2005, Tutu added his voice to the growing dissent over terrorist suspects held at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, referring to detentions without trial as "utterly unacceptable." Tutu compared these detentions to those under Apartheid.

Tutu also emphasised that when South Africa had used those methods the country had been condemned, however when powerful countries such as Britain and the United States of America had invoked such power the world was silent and in that silence accepted their methods even though they violated essential human rights. Tutu said:

The rule of law is in order to ensure that those who have power don't use their power arbitrarily and every person retains their human rights until you have proven conclusively that so-and-so is in fact guilty.

Whilst we are saying thank you that these have been released, what is happening to those left behind? We in South Africa used to have a dispensation that detained people without trial and the world quite rightly condemned that as unacceptable. Now if it was unacceptable then how come it can be acceptable to Britain and the United States. It is so, so deeply distressing. I am opposed to any arbitrary detention that is happening, even in Britain.

In February 2006, Tutu repeated these statements after a UN report was published which called for the closure of the camp. Tutu stated that the Guantanamo Bay camp was a stain on the character of the United States, while the legislation in Britain which gave a 28 day detention period for terror suspects was "excessive" and "untenable".

Tutu pointed out that similar arguments were being made in Britain and the United States which the South African apartheid regime had used. "It is disgraceful and one cannot find strong enough words to condemn what Britain and the United States and some of their allies have accepted," said Tutu.

Tutu also attacked Tony Blair's failed attempt to hold terrorist suspects in Britain for up to 90 days without charge. "Ninety days for a South African is an awful deja-vu because we had in South Africa in the bad old days a 90-day detention law," he said. Under apartheid, as at Guantanamo Bay, people were held for "unconscionably long periods" and then released, he said. Tutu stated:

"Are you able to restore to those people the time when their freedom was denied them? If you have evidence for goodness sake produce it in a court of law. People with power have an incredible capacity for wanting to be able to retain that power and don't like scrutiny."

In 2007, Tutu stated that the global "war on terror" could not be won if people were living in desperate conditions. Tutu said that the global disparity between rich and poor people creates instability.

"You can never win a war against terror as long as there are conditions in the world that make people desperate - poverty, disease, ignorance, et cetera. I think people are beginning to realize that you can't have pockets of prosperity in one part of the world and huge deserts of poverty and deprivation and think that you can have a stable and secure world."