People make decisions throughout their lives about their health. But when they are terminally ill they are not allowed to decide when they want to die.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela on his 91st birthday in 2009.
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Archbishop Desmond Tutu didn’t stop his fight for human rights once apartheid came to a formal end in 1994. He continued to speak critically against politicians who abused their power.
The archbishop’s willingness to listen to those of a different viewpoint and his staunch opposition to violence made him a pivotal figure in the end of Apartheid in South Africa.
Former South African President FW De Klerk at the opening of parliament recently. The Economic Freedom Fighters objected to his presence.
EFE-EPA/Reuters Pool
Desmond Tutu is by far the most high-profile African, if not global, religious leader to support lesbian and gay rights, and he has done so since the 1970s.
Peter Storey (middle) outside the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, 1985.
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Christian leaders played a very significant role in fighting apartheid. One of them, Peter Storey, tells in his autobiography what shaped his convictions.
The TRC’s first hearings in 1996. Left to right: Nomonde Calata, a TRC counsellor, and Nyameka Goniwe.
Jon Hrusa/Sunday Times
Twenty years after the final report of South Africa’s Truth Commission, dealing with the past will always remain “unfinished business”.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrated his 86th birthday and the unveiling of an arch in his honour outside St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is first and foremost, a spiritual leader, a man of deep prayer. This motivated his participation in supporting South Africa’s liberation struggle.
Archbishop Tutu teaches that punishing wrongdoers, with an eye for an eye, is unjustified.
Filckr/UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre
Archbishop Bishop Desmond Tutu is well known for having invoked an ubuntu ethic to evaluate South African society, and he can take substantial credit for having made the term familiar.
Andile Gumbi beats down his opponent Given Mkhize in the King Kong musical.
John Hogg
The promise of Easter, which Christians around the world celebrate, can be likened to the new struggle in South Africa for a new leadership and government that cares about the people.
A woman arrives for Nelson Mandela’s memorial. The idea of a rainbow nation has been futile.
EPA/Jim Hollander
Despite the noble goals of the new South Africa and its ideals of racial harmony, racial tensions remain a major problem in the country. Prejudice and bigotry persists even in universities.
At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Desmond Tutu promoted restorative justice. But focusing on individuals neglects broader contexts of violence and inequality.
Reuters
If violent contexts aren’t taken into account, restorative justice does not serve broader society. Instead it serves as a peacemaking process within a paradigm stacked against the poor and vulnerable.
Desmond Tutu said on his 85th birthday early in October 2016 that he wanted the right to end his life through assisted dying.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters
Proponents of assisted suicide, such as emeritus archbishop Desmond Tutu, argue that as people have the right to live with dignity, they also have the right to die with dignity.
Older generation freedom fighters like Nelson Mandela are losing currency among some young people in South Africa.
Yves Herman/Reuters
Student activists are losing faith in the legacies of anti-apartheid heroes like Nelson Mandela. Perhaps all South Africans should do the same. It may just be what the country needs for its future.
NRF Accredited & Senior Researcher; Lead Coordinator of the South-South Educational Collaboration & Knowlede Interchange Initiative, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Professor of Public Theology in the Department of Beliefs and Practices, Faculty of Theology, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University of Amsterdam), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam