Archbishop Desmond Tutu to retire on 79th birthday in October
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has announced that he will retire from public life on his 79th birthday in October.
On Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and anti-apartheid activist said he will limit his time in his office to one day a week until the end of February next year, when the office will begin its official winding-down process, Allafrica.com has reported.
He retired as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996 but soon joined South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, tasked with investigating human rights violations by the apartheid government and liberation movements.
After the Truth and Reconciliation Commission completed its work, he retired once again but kept up a hectic schedule of international appointments.
He says he believes that after 35 years in public life, the time has now come to slow down, sip tea with his wife in the afternoons, watch cricket, rugby, and soccer, and visit his children and grandchildren, rather than travelling to conferences, conventions, and university campuses.
“Instead of growing old gracefully, at home with my family reading, writing, praying and thinking, too much of my time has been spent at airports and in hotels,” chuckled Tutu.
Tutu acknowledged there would be times when he would not be able to resist speaking out publicly on issues, but said he will no longer be available for media interviews, and quoted Nelson Mandela on his retirement: “Don’t call me, I will call you.”
Asked if he was retiring too early, he responded that he wants to use his time to do things that he was not able to do during his time in office.
He thanked South Africans for affording him the space and support to do his work and for allowing him to represent them at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 1984.
He also thanked them for contributing to the efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and above all for proving at the FIFA 2010 World Cup that ubuntu is not “some theoretical construct, but a living, breathing social principle and a lesson to the world.”
Ubuntu is an African philosophy of life. The word has its origin in the Bantu languages of southern Africa.
Tutu has explained ubuntu, saying, “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.”
In 2008, Tutu said, “One of the sayings in our country is ubuntu — the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality — ubuntu — you are known for your generosity.”
Tutu also inspired the term Rainbow Nation, which was popularized by Nelson Mandela and now used around the world to describe South Africa.
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