Page 70 - FOL2023

EDITORIAL TEAM

Tribute to Archbishop Desmond

Mpilo Tutu: A freedom fighter and hu-

man rights defender par excellence

By
Advocate Tseliso Thipanyane

rowing in apartheid South Africa, and from very humble beginnings, few expected Desmond
GTutu, like many other black people, to amount to much under a racist and oppressive system
introduced to maintain and perpetuate the underdevelopment and exploitation of black South Af-
ricans – a system declared as constituting a crime against humanity in terms of the International
Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid that came into effect in
July 1976.

Despite the challenges of his upbringing, including co-
lonial and apartheid education intended to produce
black people as nothing more than cheap labour -
hewers of wood and drawers of water as Verwoerd,
the architect of the so-called bantu education,
desired - Desmond Tutu did rise above all these
challenges and many more later in his life to be-
come a leading and a much acclaimed figure in
his country of birth and in the whole world.

Amongst many of his achievements is in-
cluded a Masters in Theology obtained from
the Kings College (UK), consecration as the
Bishop of Lesotho, Bishop of Johannesburg
and then the Archbishop of the Angli-
can Church of Southern Africa. He
also lectured Theology at
the then University of
Botswana, Leso-
tho, and Swa-
ziland (UBLS) in
Lesotho in 1970
“You may write me down in history to 1971, be-
came the Sec-
With your bitter, twisted lies, retary General

You may trod me in the very dirt of the South
But still, like dust, I’ll rise. African Coun-
cil of Church-

(Maya Angelou “And Still I Rise - 1986) es (SACC), got
awarded the
Nobel Peace
Prize in 1984
for his contri-
bution to the

72 FOL Quarterly Issue 2022