This week, Cape Town City Hall hosted a celebration of Tutu’s life that featured the music and dancing he loved. Johannesburg and other parts South Africa are planning to hold memorial services.
Tutu was an “unique son and icon” of Africa. His contribution to liberation struggle, unwavering position towards peace, unity and good government will always be cherished,” Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania’s President, said. He also mentioned his support for LGBTQ people in Tanzania who are under threat of being arrested.
Evariste Ndayishimiye (Burundi President) said that Africa had lost a monument. He was accused by a U.N. Commission in September of human rights violations.
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 25 Years after Tutu. He praised Tutu as the “embody of liberation” despite the fact that Tutu’s foundation warned early this year that war in Ethiopia’s Tigray area was genocide.
Tutu was a hero across Africa for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa, and for helping to make the country’s peaceful transition from majority rule to majority rule. He then went on to address some of Africa’s most difficult issues and its leaders.
He criticized South African President Thabo Mabeki for denying HIV/AIDS, and preventing government officials from distributing life-saving treatment. Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s next president was criticized for alleged corruption.
He likened a Ugandan law that criminalizes homosexuality to South Africa’s apartheid laws that prohibit inter-racial relationships.
Nic Cheeseman, a British politics professor and specialist on African politics at the University of Birmingham, stated that Tutu was “ahead of its time.”
Cheeseman stated that many great people have one great fight within them. Then they become blinded and support the status quo. “Tutu saw injustices of all kinds — economic, racial, and sexual — and he knew there were more to be won. He didn’t stop after apartheid fell.
Tutu called for sanctions against the military junta led by the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha after it had hanged Ken Saro Wiwa (an environmental activist and playwright) and other activists in 1995.
As the evidence grew of the deaths of tens to thousands of people in Sudan’s Darfur, Tutu lashed at African leaders for supporting Omar al Bashir, the then-Sudanese leader, from an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Stephen Brown, a professor at University of Ottawa’s School of Political Studies said that Tutu believed in the universality of human right. “He believed deeply in the universality of human rights, no matter how unpopular or risky it was to promote them.”
Tutu clashed repeatedly with Zimbabwe’s former ruler Robert Mugabe who he described as a “caricature African dictator”. In return, Mugabe dismissed Tutu’s support for gay rights and called him “an angry little bishop.”
Africa’s opposition leaders mourn Tutu’s passing.
Bobi Wine, Ugandan opposition leader, tweeted “A giant has fallen”, a constant target for harassment by Uganda’s government.
“If you’re neutral in cases of injustice, you’ve chosen the side for the oppressor,” tweeted the Alliance for Change and Transparency, a Tanzanian opposition party. This tweet was a repeat of one of Tutu’s most famous quotes.
