my sos topic

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 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, homophobia, poverty and racism. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005 [1] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Tutu has also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

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.[6]

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.[7] 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.[7] 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.[8]

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.[9] Desmund Tutu's other daughter, Mpho Tutu, has also followed her father's footsteps and in 2004 was ordained an Episcopal priest by her father.[10] 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.[11]

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.[

After the fall of apartheid, Tutu headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He retired as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996 and was made emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town, an honorary title that is unusual in the Anglican church[17] He was succeeded by Njongonkulu Ndungane. At a thanksgiving for Tutu upon his retirement as Archbishop in 1996, Nelson Mandela said:

His joy in our diversity and his spirit of forgiveness are as much part of his immeasurable contribution to our nation as his passion for justice and his solidarity with the poor.[18]

Tutu is generally credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation as a metaphor for post-apartheid South Africa after 1994 under African National Congress rule. The expression has since entered mainstream consciousness to describe South Africa's ethnic diversity.

Since his retirement, Tutu has worked as a global activist on issues pertaining to democracy, freedom and human rights. In 2006, Tutu launched a global campaign, organised by Plan, to ensure that all children were registered at birth, as an unregistered child did not officially exist and was vulnerable to traffickers and during disasters.[19] Tutu is the Patron of the educational improvement charity, Link Community Development.

He frequently joins and initiates actions with his fellow Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in support of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the Dalai Lama. In March 2008 he was joined by more than 40 celebrities and 10,000 signatories in a letter on TheCommunity.com urging Chinese officials to "stop naming, blaming and defaming the Dalai Lama, and appealed to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit and report on Tibet to the international community.[20]

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". In 1985 the U.S and the U.K (Two primary investors into South Africa) stopped any investments. As a result, 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.[5]

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.[13]

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.[14]

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!"[15]

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,[16] and he became a patron of the American Harmony Child Foundation and the Hospice Association of Southern Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu

Solomon Islands

In 2009, Tutu assisted in the establishing of the Solomon Islands' Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modelled after the South African body of the same name.[38][39] He spoke at its official launch in Honiara on April 29, emphasising the need for forgiveness in order to build lasting peace.[40]

[edit] Israel

While acknowledging the significant role Jews played in the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, voicing support for Israel's security concerns, and speaking against tactics of suicide bombing and incitement to hatred[41], Tutu is an active and prominent proponent of the campaign for divestment from Israel[42], likening Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of Black South Africans under apartheid.[41] 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." [43] 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".[44]

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.[45] 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.[46]

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?"[41] 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."[41] The latter statement was criticized by some Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League.[47][48] When he edited and reprinted parts of his speech in 2005, Tutu replaced the words "Jewish lobby" with "pro-Israel lobby".[49]

[edit] The Holocaust

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."[50] 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."[51] 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.[50]

[edit] Palestinian Christians

In 2003, Tutu accepted the role as patron of Sabeel International,[52] 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.[53] 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.[54] A 2006 opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post newspaper described him as "a friend, albeit a misguided one, of Israel and the Jewish people".[55] The Zionist Organization of America has led a campaign to protest Tutu's appearances at North American campuses.

[edit] Gaza

Tutu was appointed as the UN Lead for an investigation into Israel's 2006 bombing of Beit Hanoun bombings [1]. Israel refused Tutu's delegation access so the investigation didn't occur until 2008.

During that fact-finding mission, Tutu called the gaza blockade an abomination [2] and compared Israel's behavior to the military junta in Burma.

United Nations role

In 2003, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims.[61] He was named a member of the UN advisory panel on genocide prevention in 2006.[62]

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."[63]

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.[64] 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.[65] 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.[66] 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.[67]

[edit] Political views

Gay rights

Tutu has lent his name to the fight against homophobia in Africa and around the world. He stated at the launching of the book 'Sex, Love and Homophobia' that homophobia is a 'crime against humanity' and 'every bit as unjust' as apartheid. He added that "we struggled against apartheid in South Africa, supported by people the world over, because black people were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about; our very skins...It is the same with sexual orientation. It is a given."[82]

On 16 October 1984, Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee cited his "role as a unifying leader figure in the campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa."[84] This was seen as a gesture of support for him and The South African Council of Churches which he led at that time. In 1987 Tutu was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award.[85] It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.[86] In 1992, he was awarded the Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award.

In June 1999, Tutu was invited to give the annual Wilberforce Lecture in Kingston upon Hull, commemorating the life and achievements of the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. Tutu used the occasion to praise the people of the city for their traditional support of freedom and for standing with the people of South Africa in their fight against apartheid. He was also presented with the freedom of the city.[87]

In 1978 Tutu was awarded a fellowship of King's College London, of which he is an alumnus. He returned to King's in 2004 as Visiting Professor in Post-Conflict Studies. The Students' Union nightclub, Tutu's, is named in his honour.[88]

In 2005, he was awarded the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award in recognition of his outstanding work against hunger, malnutrition and poverty worldwide.

Tutu has been awarded the freedom of the city in cities in Italy, Wales, England and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has received numerous doctorates and fellowships at distinguished universities. He has been named a Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur by France, Germany has awarded him the Order of Merit Grand Cross, while he received the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999. He is also the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize, the King Hussein Prize and the Marion Doenhoff Prize for International Reconciliation and Understanding. In 2008, Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois proclaimed 13 May 'Desmond Tutu Day'. On his visit to Illinois, Tutu was awarded the Lincoln Leadership Prize and unveiled his portrait which will be displayed at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield.[89]

In November 2008, Tutu was awarded the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding.

On 8 May 2009, Tutu was the featured speaker during Michigan State University's spring undergraduate convocation. During the commencement, Tutu was bestowed with an honorary doctor of humane letters degree. Two days later, he received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[90] The two schools had coincidentally met in the previous month's NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, a detail not missed by Tutu.[91]

Tutu was awarded an honorary degree from Bangor University, Bangor Wales, on June 10 2009. During the ceremony, Tutu thanked the people of Wales for their role in helping end apartheid.

On 12 June 2009 the University of Vienna conferred the degree "Doctor Theologiae honoris causa" on Desmond Tutu. The Faculty of Protestant Theology and Senate based the decision on Tutu's outstanding achievement in developing and establishing what can be called "ubuntu-theology", his manifestation of what became known as "public theology". By integrating the principles of the South African ubuntu philosophy with his theological thinking he made a major contribution beyond classical Liberation Theology.

Southwark Cathedral named two new varieties of rose in honour of Desmond and Leah Tutu at the 2009 RHS Flower Show at Hampton Court Palace. To celebrate the event, the Southwark Cathedral Merbecke Choir gave a concert in the presence of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah at Southwark Cathedral on 11 July 2009.[92][93] The Archbishop joined the choir on stage for its encore - an arrangement of George Gershwin's 'Summertime'.

In 2009 he also received the Spiritual Leadership Award from the international Humanity's Team movement[94][95] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama.[96]

Women's rights

On 8 March 2009, Desmond Tutu joined the campaign "Africa for women's rights" launched by The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), The African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), Women's Aid Collective (WACOL), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), Women and Law in South Africa (WLSA) and hundred other African human rights and women's rights organisations. This campaign for the fulfilment of women's human rights, and the end of violence and discrimination against women, aims to generate mass mobilisation and draw maximum attention, in order to increase pressure on African States to ratify the international and regional women's human rights protection instruments, without reservation, and to respect them, in domestic laws and in practice.

Bishop Desmond Tutu was born in 1931 in Klerksdorp, Transvaal. His father was a teacher, and he himself was educated at Johannesburg Bantu High School. After leaving school he trained first as a teacher at Pretoria Bantu Normal College and in 1954 he graduated from the University of South Africa. After three years as a high school teacher he began to study theology, being ordained as a priest in 1960. The years 1962-66 were devoted to further theological study in England leading up to a Master of Theology. From 1967 to 1972 he taught theology in South Africa before returning to England for three years as the assistant director of a theological institute in London. In 1975 he was appointed Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg, the first black to hold that position. From 1976 to 1978 he was Bishop of Lesotho, and in 1978 became the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. Tutu is an honorary doctor of a number of leading universities in the USA, Britain and Germany.

Desmond Tutu has formulated his objective as "a democratic and just society without racial divisions", and has set forward the following points as minimum demands:

1. equal civil rights for all
2. the abolition of South Africa's passport laws
3. a common system of education
4. the cessation of forced deportation from South Africa to the so-called "homelands"

The South African Council of Churches is a contact organization for the churches of South Africa and functions as a national committee for the World Council of Churches. The Boer churches have disassociated themselves from the organization as a result of the unambiguous stand it has made against apartheid. Around 80 percent of its members are black, and they now dominate the leading positions.


Selected Bibliography
By Tutu
Crying in the Wilderness. The Struggle for Justice in South Africa. Edited by John Webster. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1982. (Sermons, speeches, articles, press statements, 1978-1980.)
Hope and Suffering: Sermons and Speeches. Edited by John Webster. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1984. (From the period 1976-1982.)
The Rainbow People of God: The Making of a Peaceful Revolution. Edited by John Allen. New York: Doubleday, 1994. (Speeches, letters and sermons from 1976 to 1994, woven together in narrative by his media secretary.)

Other Sources
du Boulay, Shirley. Tutu, Voice of the Voiceless. London: Penguin Books, 1989.
Sparks, Allister. The Mind of South Africa. New York: Knopf, 1990. (Historical interpretation by a distinguished South African journalist.)

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1981-1990, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Irwin Abrams, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

http://www.tutu.org/

The centre will be the home of outreach programmes to promote peace. It will assimilate knowledge on the causes of conflict and challenges facing leaders. It will nurture tolerance and understanding among young people, empowering them to shape their future, and it will broker social justice by giving a voice to those who are marginalised. These activities and the ethos of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre will be guided by the legacy of its namesake, whose contribution to a peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa continued and willingness to challenge expediency and hypocrisy are indelibly marked on history.

The development of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre and its programmes are guided by trustees who bring a range expertise and experiences, some of whom are renowned for their contribution in assisting with South Africa’s transition to democracy.

Early life

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp on 7 October 1931 and schooled in Ventersdorp, Krugersdorp and Johannesburg. His father was a primary school principal and his mother worked as a cleaner and a cook at a school for the blind.

Tutu recalls that as a child, one day he saw a white priest raise his hat to his mother. He had never seen a white man pay this courtesy to black woman and the gesture made an impression on him. The priest was Trevor Huddleston, who was to play a significant role in Tutu's life. By 1954 Tutu had a teaching diploma from the Pretoria Bantu Normal College and he later a completed a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Africa (UNISA). But after three years as a teacher, Tutu quit in protest against the deteriorating standard of Black education that resulted from the implementation of the Bantu Education Act of 1953.
Academia, early struggle, family - 1955 to 1975

On 2 July 1955, Tutu married Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, a teacher who was taught by his father. They had four children: Trevor Armstrong Thamsanqa Tutu, Theresa Ursula Thandeka Tutu, Naomi Nontombi Tutu and Mpho Andrea Tutu, all of whom attended the Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland. The Tutus have been married for more than 50 years.

Having left teaching, Tutu enrolled at St Peter's Theological College. He was ordained as a deacon in 1960, and became a priest in 1961. In 1962 he moved to London, where he completed his Honours and Masters degrees in Theology in 1966.

Tutu then returned to South Africa and taught at the Federal Theological Seminary at Alice in the Eastern Cape. In 1970 he was offered a lecturing position at Roma University in Lesotho. He was appointed Associate Director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches in Kent, London in 1972. He returned to South Africa in 1975 to take up the post of Anglican Dean of Johannesburg.
Soweto uprising and beyond

Between 1976 and 1978 Tutu was the Bishop of the Anglican Church in Lesotho and the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. In 1976, protests in Soweto over the Apartheid government's enforcement of Afrikaans as a compulsory medium of instruction in black schools culminated in the massacre of dozens of students, which triggered widespread unrest and world outrage.

Tutu had become increasingly outspoken about Apartheid and the privations suffered by blacks. Although his criticism was unflinching, he constantly urged reconciliation between all sides. Like many who spoke out against Apartheid, he was harassed by the state security police and his passport was confiscated.

During this time a number of South African activists were "banned," with stringent conditions which entailed constant surveillance and prevented them from communicating with others or travelling freely. Mamphela Ramphele, who was banished to a remote rural area, recalls that Tutu undertook to telephone her once a week and comfort her. He kept his promise week after week, despite difficult circumstances for them both and it became a source of great encouragement to Ramphele. A number of South Africans have spoken about Tutu's humanity during those very trying times.
The 1980s

Desmond Tutu continued to speak out against the injustice of Apartheid and in 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, the first South African to receive the accolade since Albert Luthuli in 1961.

In 1985, he was appointed the Bishop of Johannesburg and a year later became the first black cleric to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa when he was named Archbishop of Cape Town. From 1987 to 1997 he served as president of the All Africa Conference of Churches.

Archbishop Tutu urged foreign disinvestment in South Africa as a way to pressurise the government to dismantle Apartheid, and was the focus of harassment by the security police as a result. Like murdered activist Steve Biko, he also urged civil disobedience. It led to events such as the "purple rain" protest in Cape Town in 1989, where protesters were sprayed with purple dye to identify them to the police for arrest later.
The 1990s

Following his appointment in 1989 as State President, FW de Klerk on 2 February 1990 unbanned the ANC and other political parties, and announced plans to release Nelson Mandela from prison, which took place on 11 February.

The process was not without violence: 19 April 1993, Chris Hani, leader of the SACP, was murdered by right-wingers. At Hani's emotionally-charged funeral, Archbishop Tutu urged the crowd of around 120 000 to work peacefully together and end apartheid. He called on the mourners to chant with him: "We will be free!", "All of us!", "Black and white together!"

Archbishop Tutu told the throng: "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!"

Following the democratic elections in 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to bear witness to, record and in some cases, grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations.

President Mandela asked Archbishop Tutu to chair the TRC, with Dr Alex Boraine as deputy chairman.

Public hearings of the Human Rights Violations Committee and the Amnesty Committee were held at a number of venues around South Africa. The hearings were often harrowing and emotional, conveying the toll that Apartheid took on all sides of the liberation struggle.

On October 28, 1998 the Commission presented its report, which condemned both sides for their atrocities. The TRC has become a model for a number of similar post-conflict procedures around the world.

When Archbishop Tutu retired in 1996, Nelson Mandela told a dinner to honour him: "His joy in our diversity and his spirit of forgiveness are as much part of his immeasurable contribution to our nation as his passion for justice and his solidarity with the poor."

Widely described as "South Africa's moral conscience," Archbishop Tutu continues to campaign vigorously for human rights throughout the world, speaking out on a variety of issues such as:

* The plight of Zimbabweans under the regime of Robert Mugabe: "We Africans should hang our heads in shame. How can what is happening in Zimbabwe elicit hardly a word of concern let alone condemnation from us leaders of Africa? After the horrible things done to hapless people in Harare... what more has to happen before we who are leaders, religious and political, of our mother Africa are moved to cry out "Enough is enough?"
* The lack of progress on treating HIV/AIDs in South Africa: "Those of you who work to care for people suffering from AIDS and TB are wiping a tear from God's eye."
* The treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government: "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?"

The Elders

In 2007 Archbishop Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel convened The Elders, a group of world leaders who contribute their integrity and leadership in dealing with some of the world's most pressing problems. Other members include Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson, Muhammad Yunus and Aung San Suu Kyi, whose chair was left symbolically empty due to her continued confinement by the military junta in Burma.

Archbishop Tutu is Chairman of the Elders and continues to work energetically in a number areas of human-rights and his ministry.