Desmond Tutu laid to rest in ceremony devoid of extravaganza
South Africa held a state funeral for anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that was stripped of pomp but rich in glowing tributes.
Tutu died last Sunday, aged 90, triggering grief at home and abroad for a life spent fighting injustice. Famous for his modesty, Tutu gave instructions for a simple, nofrills ceremony, with a cheap coffin, followed by an eco-friendly cremation.
Family, friends, clergy and politicians gathered at Cape Town’s St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, which was illuminated in purple, the colour of his clerical robes, for the funeral on Saturday. It was there where Tutu used the pulpit to rail against a brutal white-minority regime and it’s there that he was buried, the Mail and Guardian reported.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who accorded Tutu the official funeral usually reserved for presidents, described the ceremony as ‘category-one funeral with religious characteristic’.
“Our departed father was a crusader in the struggle for freedom, for justice, for equality and for peace, not just in South Africa. but around the world as well,” said Ramaphosa.
“While our beloved (Nelson Mandela) was the father of our democracy, Archbishop Tutu was the spiritual father of our new nation?, lauding him as, our moral compass and national conscience”. “His was a life lived honestly and completely. He has left the world a better place. We remember him with a smile,” said Ramaphosa before handing South Africa’s multicoloured flag to the ‘chief mourner’, Tutu’s widow, Leah.
The flag, a reminder of Tutu’s description of the post-apartheid country as the ‘Rainbow Nation’, was the only military rite accorded to him, respecting his request before he died that military protocol be minimal.
The funeral ended South Africa’s week of mourning, with the diminutive rope-handled pinewood coffin, adorned by a small bunch of carnations, immediately removed from the church by vicars in cream robes.
Under a grey sky and drizzle, among the mourners ushered into the cathedral were ex-Irish president Mary Robinson, and Mandela’s widow Graca Machel. Both read out prayers. Others included the widow of the last apartheid leader FW de Klerk, who died in November, and former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe. Tutu’s close friend, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, could not attend due to advanced age and Covid restrictions, according to his representative.
Tutu’s long-time friend, retired bishop Michael Nuttall, who was a dean when Tutu was the archbishop of Cape Town, delivered the sermon.