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.
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.
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.
Christian leaders played a very significant role in fighting apartheid. One of them, Peter Storey, tells in his autobiography what shaped his convictions.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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