South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, here seen with Tutu’s widow Leah, called the late archbishop ‘the spiritual father of our new nation’
South Africa on Saturday held a state funeral for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the last great hero of the struggle against apartheid, that was stripped of pomp but rich in glowing tributes.
Tutu died last Sunday, aged 90, triggering grief at home and abroad for a life spent fighting injustice.
Family, friends, clergy and politicians gathered at Cape Town’s St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, which was illuminated in purple, the colour of his clerical robes.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who accorded Tutu the official funeral usually reserved for presidents, described the ceremony as “category-one funeral with religious characteristic”.
“While our beloved (Nelson Mandela) was the father of our democracy, Archbishop Tutu was the spiritual father of our new nation”, lauding him as “our moral compass and national conscience”.
“His was a life lived honestly and completely. He has left the world a better place. We remember him with a smile,” said Ramaphosa before handing South Africa’s multicoloured flag to the “chief mourner”, Tutu’s widow, Leah.
The funeral ended South Africa’s week of mourning, with the diminutive rope-handled pinewood coffin, adorned by a small bunch of carnations, immediately removed from the church by vicars in cream robes.
Others included the widow of the last apartheid leader FW de Klerk, who died in November, and former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe.
– ‘Heavens didn’t collapse’ –
“Our partnership struck a chord perhaps in the hearts and minds of many people: a dynamic black leader and his white deputy in the dying years of apartheid; and hey presto, the heavens did not collapse,” said Nuttall.
Under apartheid, the white-minority government cemented its grip with a panoply of laws based on the notion of race and racial segregation, and the police ruthlessly hunted down opponents, killing or jailing them.
The purple-gowned figure campaigned relentlessly abroad, administering public lashings to the Western world for failing to slap sanctions on the apartheid regime.
– Humour –
He would later admonish the ruling African National Congress for corruption and leadership incompetence.
Less than a kilometre away, dozens of people watched the funeral broadcast from a big screen despite earlier rains.
“I loved his humour! Very witty,” said 63-year-old housewife Washilah Isaacs, adding that she also liked Tutu’s support for Palestine.
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Originally published as S.Africa holds modest state funeral for ‘spiritual father’ Tutu