Desmond tutu biography video edgar

Desmond Tutu, Cologne, 2007. Dean of Johannesburg.

His father was a teacher, his mother a domestic worker. Other awards given to  Desmond Tutu include The Gandhi Peace Prize in 2007, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, and the Maqubela Prize for Liberty in 1986.

Since Nelson Mandela‘s passing, Tutu became increasingly critical of the ANC leadership, believing they wasted opportunities to create a better legacy and end the poverty endemic in many black townships.

Tutu is one of the patrons of The Forgiveness Project, a UK-based charity which seeks to facilitate conflict resolution and break the cycle of vengeance and retaliation.

Tutu is a committed Christian and starts every day with a period of quiet, reflection, walk  and Bible reading.

Journalists were often startled when, after excoriating the apartheid system as demonic, he would break into peals of laughter at some absurdity. “Biography Desmond Tutu” Oxford, UK. biographyonline.net – 13th March 2017. But he insisted it was necessary: “Without forgiveness,” he said, “there is no future.”

His life, though rooted in South Africa, was deeply intertwined with Britain.

He admires fellow religious leaders, such as the Dalai Lama and feels that a person’s outer religion is not of critical importance.

“Bringing people together is what I call ‘Ubuntu,’ which means ‘I am because we are.’ Far too often people think of themselves as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world.

Mandela called him “the voice of the voiceless.” In 1994, when the first free elections were held, Tutu coined the term “the Rainbow Nation,” capturing the fragile hope that South Africa might transcend race and build unity out of diversity. Under the long, bleak night of apartheid, when brutality was policy and cruelty the law of the land, Desmond Tutu’s laughter was rebellion.

In Hull, he was awarded the Freedom of the City and later the Wilberforce Medal, linking his struggle to Britain’s own abolitionist heritage. And into this storm walked Tutu, newly appointed Bishop of Johannesburg. The archive also includes materials produced by third parties which have been donated to the Archbishop. Even on the momentous day of 27 April 1994 when blacks were able to vote for the first time, Tutu wrote “As always, I had got up early for a quiet time before my morning walk and then morning prayers and the Eucharist.”

Tutu is also a supporter of interfaith harmony.

He was in the streets, comforting parents, shielding children, confronting police. He was influenced amongst others by fellow Anglican Bishop Trevor Huddleston. The police fired live ammunition, killing hundreds. Yet he refused to be silenced.

By the 1980s, Desmond Tutu had become the most recognisable face of resistance within South Africa.

But when the apartheid government introduced the notorious Bantu Education Act in 1953, deliberately designed to keep Black South Africans uneducated and servile, Tutu resigned in disgust. It was his way of refusing to let hatred dictate the terms of his life.

When Mandela was finally released in 1990 and South Africa began its halting transition to democracy, Tutu was once again at the centre.