Wake up, SA: It's time for your reality check, says Tutu
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - Aug 12 2011 13:53
Whites need to accept that they benefited from apartheid, cabinet ministers need to sell their expensive cars and South Africans need to be less indifferent. This is according to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who spoke at a book launch at the University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town on Thursday evening. The damage apartheid had caused was impossible to escape, he said.
"Thus we must not be surprised at the staggering statistics of violent crime, murder, rape -- when you suffer from self-hate you project it to others who look like you, and so, we have so-called black-on-black violence, frequently gratuitous violence, where the victim of a hijacking is shot dead even when she has surrendered her car keys."
Tutu said the self-hatred was shown in the "disgrace of littering", which was not a function of poverty.
"Our parents were poor but our surroundings were scrupulously clean because apartheid had not yet done its pernicious work. I am nothing, I am rubbish and so it does not matter that I live amongst all this rubbish which reflects what I think of myself," said Tutu.
He said this mind-set materialised in many ways.
"We show it in how we drive recklessly, inconsiderately, aggressively because deep down we are angry, and so, the appalling carnage on our roads during the holidays, horrendous statistics, we just accept.
"NFP [National Freedom Party] leaders are assassinated in KwaZulu-Natal and there's no outrage, just indifference from us all. Four children die in a fire. Poor black children, no outcry. We are wounded," said Tutu.
He said white citizens needed to accept the obvious: "You all benefited from apartheid."
"Your children could go to good schools. You lived in smart neighbourhoods. Yet so many of my fellow white citizens become upset when you mention this. Why? Some are crippled by shame and guilt and respond with self-justification or indifference.
"Both attitudes make that we are less than we can be."
But Tutu did not spare the government in his criticism either, saying urgent action was required to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
"My appeal to our Cabinet ministers: There is much dehumanising poverty abroad. There are people in our country who, unbelievably, go to bed without a meal.
"Your handbook permits you to buy very expensive cars and most of you have done so. In the spirit of ubuntu to show that you care, that you are compassionate, please sell your expensive cars and replace them with slightly less pricey cars - to show you care about these poor people. Your humanity depends on it," said Tutu. -- Sapa
Labels: APARTHEID, CORRUPTION, DESMOND TUTU, LAND REFORM
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COMMENT - I can't disagree with anying Winnie Mandela has said. Compare this neoliberal garbabe with
the Freedom Charter, and it is clear why land ownership is still the same as under apartheid, and why the mines are still in private hands. There is a good chapter on how the ANC became co-opted (like Labour in the UK) in Naomi Klein's
The Shock Doctrine. Also, message to Desmond Tutu: you don't equate those who fought for liberation with those who stood for apartheid.
Mandela let down blacks: Winnie
by
09/03/2010 00:00:00
STRUGGLE stalwart Winnie Madikizela-Mandela bitterly lashed out at Nelson Mandela in a new interview. She said South Africa's first democratically elected president, who is also her ex-husband, had become
a "corporate foundation" who was being "wheeled out to collect the money".
Madikizela-Mandela also
called Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu a "cretin", in the interview with Nadira Naipaul, who visited her with her husband, the writer VS Naipaul, in Soweto.
"Mandela let us down," said Madikizela-Mandela. "He agreed to a bad deal for the blacks. Economically, we are still on the outside.
"The economy is very much 'white'. It has a few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in the struggle have died unrewarded," said Madikizela-Mandela, in the interview published by the London Evening Standard.
She said Mandela had no control over the ANC anymore and was just being used by the Nelson Mandela Foundation to get funds.
"Look what they make him do. The great Mandela. He has no control or say any more. They put that huge statue of him right in the middle of the most affluent 'white' area of Johannesburg. Not here where we spilled our blood and where it all started.
"Mandela is now a corporate foundation. He is wheeled out globally to collect the money and he is content doing that. The ANC have effectively sidelined him but they keep him as a figurehead for the sake of appearance."
Madikizela-Mandela said Mandela was not the only leader who suffered.
"This name Mandela is an albatross around the necks of my family. You all must realise that Mandela was not the only man who suffered. There were many others, hundreds who languished in prison and died.
"Many unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle, and there were others in the leadership too, like poor Steve Biko, who died of the beatings, horribly all alone.
"Mandela did go to prison and he went in there as a burning young revolutionary. But look what came out."
Madikizela-Mandela criticised him for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize with the apartheid government's last president, FW de Klerk.
"I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel [Peace Prize in 1993] with his jailer [FW] de Klerk. Hand in hand they went.
"Do you think De Klerk released him from the goodness of his heart? He had to. The times dictated it, the world had changed, and our struggle was not a flash in the pan, it was bloody to say the least and we had given rivers of blood.
"I had kept it alive with every means at my disposal."
She also lashed out at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, criticising Tutu, its chairperson.
"Look at this Truth and Reconciliation charade. He [Mandela] should never have agreed to it.
"What good does the truth do? How does it help anyone to know where and how their loved ones were killed or buried? That Bishop Tutu who turned it all into a religious circus came here.
"He had the cheek to tell me to appear. I told him a few home truths. I told him that he and his other like-minded cretins were only sitting here because of our struggle and me. Because of the things I and people like me had done to get freedom."
Looking back, she said the movement's actions were badly planned.
"You know, sometimes I think we had not thought it all out. There was no planning from our side. How could we? We were badly educated and the leadership does not acknowledge that. Maybe we have to go back to the drawing board and see where it all went wrong." -Sapa
Labels: ANC, DESMOND TUTU, NELSON MANDELA, NEOCOLONIALISM, NEOLIBERALISM, WINNIE MANDELA
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South Africa's Tutu attacks ANC government before poll
Written by Reuters
Wednesday, April 01, 2009 4:34:18 PM
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu launched a scathing attack on South Africa's ruling African National Congress, reminding its leaders they are not God, in an interview aired before this month's general election. The ANC is still respected for its long fight against white-minority rule but critics say it has betrayed the struggle since coming to power in 1994.
The party is expected to win the election on April 22 but supporters are becoming increasingly disillusioned by corruption scandals.
"Let me tell this ANC government what I told the Afrikaner ... government: 'You may have power now but you are not God'," Tutu said in an interview broadcast by South Africa's eTV late on Tuesday and on Wednesday.
"Remember you are not God. And one day you will get your come-uppance."
The breakaway Congress of the People (COPE) could reduce the ANC's dominance in parliament in the face of growing public anger over graft, poor services, poverty and crime.
ANC leader Jacob Zuma, expected to become South Africa's president, is awaiting word on whether corruption charges that have dogged him for years will be dropped.
Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body set up after the end of apartheid to examine human rights abuses.
South Africa's refusal to give Tibet's spiritual leader Dalai Lama a visa to attend a peace conference of Nobel laureates, including Tutu, was widely criticised. Critics accused the government of caving in to pressure from China, which it denied.
Tutu said it was an example of the moral degeneration in South Africa, which holds itself up as a model of democracy and human rights.
"I had thought, you know, that as an old man I was going to be sitting on the sidelines and watching our young people helping this new democracy flourish and grow ...," he said.
Labels: ANC, DESMOND TUTU, ELECTIONS, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Tutu call for Zim invasion totally irresponsible: Azapo
Our reporter
Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:41:00 +0000
A South African former anti-apartheid organization, Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) has described Archbishop Desmond Tutu's call for intervention in Zimbabwe as totally irresponsible.
Azapo leaders were briefing the media in Kimberley, South Africa, following the party's two-day central committee meeting in the Northern Cape. They have lambasted tutu for encouraging the use of force to oust President Robert Mugabe.
Azapo's Deputy President, Phandelani Nefolovhodwe says Tutu's solution to Zimbabwe’s political situation is irresponsible given SADC's principles of respecting the sovereignty and integrity of member states.
Azapo made the headlines in September this year when they criticized the ouster of former South African President Thabo Mbeki saying the timing and manner of the removal "might play into the hands of Western imperialism that has continued to plot the downfall of promising democracies in Africa and the world over."
"This might lead to the unfortunate undermining of our country's sovereignty and internal security."
Labels: AZAPO, COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, DESMOND TUTU
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My faith being challenged
Nancy Nyamhunga—Opinion
Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:00:00 +0000
WHEN I hear and see Dr Sentamu, Pius Ncube and Desmond Tutu among other notable “man of the cloth” advocating military intervention in Zimbabwe, I ask myself whether Christianity itself is evil or it is being abused by few attention-seeking individuals to further some evil causes.
I was born and bred in a very Christian family – so much so that my parents’ had to abandon their first choice for my name which was a Shona name in favour of “Christian name”.
My mother had wanted to call me Chenai, but the then Anglican priest at our local parish would not accept the name as it did not sound Christian for me to be baptized. My father, being a great fan of Frank Sinatra then, opted for Nancy (Sinatra’s wife), and the baptism was conferred. I still haven’t found any relationship between the name Nancy and some notable characters in the bible – all I have proved beyond doubt is that the name sound very English.
My up-bringing was very much influenced by Christianity – at least from what I used to believe were Christian values. As a little girl I was a member of the Brownies and I used to love my little brown uniform with a yellow sash across. Later I graduated to the Girl Guides membership.
All the while all our teachings were about loving one another, helping those who were less fortunate in society, respecting our parents, our elders etc. I can even still sing the Brownie motto today:
I promise that I will do my best
To serve my duty to God
To serve my country and other people
And to keep the Brownie law
Yet today, my very faith is being challenged by those who supposedly represent Christianity. Where is Dr Sentamu’s love for Zimbabweans when he advocates mass bombs to be dropped on the streets of Zimbabwe? Bombs are designed to cause mass murder, yet a representative of a church I grew up believing to represent love and peace sanctions such actions.
Pius Ncube, apart from committing adultery whilst at the helm of the highest office of the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe, has never regretted his call for military intervention in Zimbabwe; he has asked the South African government several times to cut-off electricity supplies to Zimbabwe. He doesn’t care about how such actions will inevitably speed up the death of someone who might have lived a bit longer.
Sanctions - in whatever form they are packaged in - are designed to cause mass pain, and ultimately death. Desmond Tutu has not been left behind in the race.
What I cannot understand from these men of cloth is – if they are for peace and love, why do they not come together and travel to Zimbabwe and meet the political leadership there?
Why are they not taking this initiative to act as mediators between Zimbabwe and UK given their views are highly respected in the western countries? Why are they instead choosing to sanction mass murders- something contrary to Christian teachings?
I have asked so many questions lately with regards to Christianity and events happening in Zimbabwe without getting any answers. I still have many such questions. Who appoints the top leadership of churches in Zimbabwe and Africa in general especially with regards to traditional churches, and what criteria are used. Is it someone’s faith in Christian values or political inclination?
Yet it is not just these men I have mentioned who have challenged my faith.
I once attended a Shona catholic service in UK and the priest was constantly referring to the “brutality of the Zimbabwean government” at every given opportunity. He even went to state that finally the Catholic Church had “eventually found a way of ex-communicating Mugabe, basically he ex-communicated himself”, to use his own words.
Not that it would bother me if such an event had indeed happened; if laws are broken in any organisation then we all expect to be punished.
My concern was whether this was meant to be a normal church service or a political rally. I didn’t expect that kind of language from a church priest. I was expecting some kind of solace, respite from the intoxicating politics of Zimbabwe and here unexpectedly I was being lectured about the same politics.
Is there something wrong with today’s Christianity or is it a case of abuse of office? Should churches be involved in politics and if so, which role should the church play? I would have thought churches are supposed to be conciliatory, act as bridges between warring factions but never expect the churches or those who lead them to fan wars. Perhaps I’m the one who is ignorant.
Whilst I’m locked in this self-imposed battle, I’m struggling to keep my old Christian faith, that which taught me to respect my all my elders, more so those who are suppose to represent Christian values. Meanwhile I get inspired by characters like Bishop T.D. Jakes and refuse to recognize the above men of cloth as representatives of Christianity, but as politicians camouflaged in the philanthropic world to cheat their way into high political offices.
Nancy Nyamhunga
Leicester, United Kingdom
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, DESMOND TUTU, NEOCOLONIALISM, PIUS NCUBE
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