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Desmond Tutu, the Peace Warrior - Process

Mexico City (apro).- In full apartheid, in South Africa, blacks could not go on the sidewalk of the street if there was a target.They had to get off as a symbol of submission.In the thirties and in the Mining City of Klerksdorp, little Desmond walked with his mother Aletta who wore clothes to wash.They went for the bench just when they saw a white man.It was an Anglican pastor, who got off the sidewalk and greeted them by removing their hat.

This fact impressed the Infante Tutu and marked him for his whole life, both in his religious option and in his social activism.This anecdote is contained in the book Tutu: The Authorized Portrait, written on the occasion of his 80 years for his daughter Mphho and by the journalist Allister Sparks.

The death of Desmond Tutu at 90 years has shocked the world.After a long illness, prostate cancer, the Anglican archbishop emeritus died, who was tireless fighter and an emblem against apartheid.Then became promoter of reconciliation.Tutu won in 1984 the Nobel Peace Prize for his non -violent struggle against the racist regime.The current president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa called him "an incomparable patriot".For Obama it is "a universal spirit and a moral compass".Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King, refers to him as a "powerful pilgrim on earth".Nelson Mandela said that when Desmond Tutu died, "God was going to receive it with open arms".

The struggle of this Anglican clergy concentrated on undermining repressive supremacism;in fighting for human rights and against discrimination.In the last years of his life he consecrated his social and religious activism in defense of the rights of women, homosexuals and against climate change.

The people who knew him claim that Tutu was an eloquent, charismatic and deeply sensitive man, with great sense of humor.From having received the Nobel Prize, his figure grew internationally.He had been despised not only by South African reactionary circles, but in his own church.But from the Nobel, with 53 years, he enjoyed enormous respect and popularity worldwide.In 1986 he was appointed archbishop of Cabo Cape;Faced with suspicion, he was the first black archbishop.Within his church he struggled for the ordination of women and firmly opposed the discrimination of homosexuals.Due to this discrimination he declared to feel "ashamed of being Anglican" because an ecclesiastical apartheid against sexual diversity was reproduced.The day he turned 85, very sick, made a notable dissertation in favor of euthanasia.This was written for The Washington Post in 2016: “I have prepared for my death and I have made it clear that I do not want to be kept alive at any cost.I hope to be treated with compassion and that I am allowed to move on to the next stage of life in the way I choose ”.

Desmond Tutu, el guerrero de la paz - Proceso

Desmond Tutu was a cleric that knew how to apply the prophecy of the Bible as an instrument of interpellation against unfair realities.His preaching was overwhelming, as had Herder Cámara, in Brazil, or Óscar Arnulfo Romero, in El Salvador.To understand the depth of the thought of the Anglican archbishop, it is necessary to run the ancestral inheritance of South Africa.He managed to combine the African ancestrality with Christianity in a fruitful way.In fact, his philosophy was inspired by the so -called Ubuntu.It is a philosophical concept of the Bantu tradition, with a strong social value, present, for example, in the languages of the Zulu and Xhosa peoples.Ubuntu would mean: "I am because you are".He maintains that a person becomes human due to other people.In other ancestral cultures we can find certain analogies.For example, Rohayhu (love, friendship) in Guaraní culture;o Ayni (solidarity) in Quechua.A vision that supports a society without divisions and in which each person is called to play an important role.Thus, the attention that Tutu gave to all kinds of otherness, expressing an instinctive and natural tension towards peace.

In South Africa this concept was key in the reconciliation and forgiveness process.Once the overthrow of apartheid, Desmond Tutu took advantage of when he presided over the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.It was not revenge for the abuses of racial segregation.All are interlimed.The strategy was: the perpetrator confesses his crime with all sincerity;The victim listens carefully and tells her pain;Repair and restorative justice is reached;Eventually a curative penalty and even amnesty are accepted, with exception for the most abhorrent crimes against humanity, which are sent to the competent court.

Desmond Tutu was nourished by Latin American theology.Gustavo Gutiérrez's great friend, sympathized with his theological postulates.Tutu collaborated in the work theology and liberation: writing and spirituality, essays around the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, edited by the Bartolomé de las Casas Institute in 1990.In addition to epistolary and congress exchanges, Tutu Prologga.However, it does not approve the use of weapons in religious response to injustices.Many Catholics, such as Camilo Torres, supported the urban guerrillas of Catholic University and the participation of Catholic clergy and laity in the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979 was activated.Desmond Tutu is a disciple of Gandhi and non -violent civil disobedience.Paraphrasing used to repeat: “I oppose violence because when it seems to cause good, it is only temporary.Actually, the evil that causes is permanent ".On his trips to the United States he approached the civilist struggles of Martin Luther King and in his final stage he sympathized with feminist theologies.

The Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu was one of the key figures of the ecumenical movement in the eighties and ninety years.In conclusion, our character is not only an icon in the Antiapartheid struggle but a Christian bulwark, bearer of a theology of hope that claims first of all justice.