Symbol of the resistance against apartheid before and promoter of post reconciliation, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has managed to play key roles in the fight against racial segregation in South Africa. An icon – like Nelson Mandela – already history of the rainbow country. He is credited with the phrase Rainbow Nation, coined in view of the first democratic elections in 1994.
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Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu
First black Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1984, Tutu chose for his last I travel a pine wood coffin: the cheapest coffin available. Director of the funeral ceremony, among the wishes expressed shortly before his death, at the age of 90, weakened by years and prostate cancer, there is an invitation to make donations to charity (instead of buying flowers, except for “carnations”) and the liquefaction process of the body. It will be “dissolved” in a potassium hydroxide solution at a temperature of 93 degrees Celsius through a process called alkaline hydrolysis.
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South Africa, Desmond Tutu’s coffin reaches St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town
An alternative to cremation, considered more ecological as it consumes less energy and produces no emissions. At the end of the treatment, for about 4 hours, only the bones will remain while the liquid resulting from the dissolution of the tissues – devoid of DNA – will be disposed of in the sewer. ” That was what he aspired to as an eco-warrior ,” said Reverend Michael Weeder, dean of Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral and keeper of Tutu’s remains and memory.
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Desmond Tutu in Washington (1984)
The State Funeral, present only 100 people due to the restrictions on the coronavirus, at the Cathedral of St. George, began with a song and a procession of religious with the eulogy entrusted to the president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa. For Tutu the first office of the state reserved a solemn mass like a President of the Republic . In recent days Ramaphosa had expressed fraternal words: “I mourn the disappearance of a brother. Arch – the diminutive of archbishop, as he used to call him – was a faithful friend and spiritual advisor to me. He was the latest exponent of an extraordinary generation of leaders that Africa gave birth to and gave to the world “.
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South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa
From the same pulpit, the Anglican archbishop denounced for years the white minority regime that discriminated against the black majority of the country from 1948 to 1991. Together with Mandela, Tutu fought tirelessly against apartheid : with his straight voice I use the pulpit as the first black bishop of Johannesburg, and later of Cape Town, to galvanize public opinion against racial iniquity both at home and around the world. Activist of political initiatives undertaken to break down the differences between whites and blacks, he has met heads of state and prominent figures in world politics.
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Desmond Tutu with Ronald Reagan (1984)
A charismatic figure amicably described by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the Anglican world church, in a video message shown during the requiem: “When we were in the dark, he brought the light. For me to praise him and like a mouse that renders tribute to an elephant , ”Welby said. South Africa has given us extraordinary examples of towering leaders of the rainbow nation with President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu. The light of many Nobel laureates has faded over time, but that of Archbishop Tutu has become brighter. ”
From Cape Town, the story of Rai correspondent Veronica Fernandes
