Modest requiem for a titan: South Africa bids Tutu farewell
CAPE TOWN, Jan 1, ( AFP) - South Africa bid farewell on Saturday to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the last great hero of the struggle against apartheid, in a funeral stripped of pomp but freighted with tears and drenched in rain.
Tutu died last Sunday at the age of 90, triggering grief among South Africans and tributes from world leaders for a life spent fighting injustice.
Famous for his modesty, Tutu gave instructions for a simple, no-frills ceremony, with a cheap coffin, donations for charity instead of floral tributes and an eco-friendly cremation.
The requiem mass started at 10 am at Cape Town's St George's Cathedral where, for years, Tutu used the pulpit to rail against a brutal white minority regime. That is where he is now buried.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, delivering the eulogy, accorded Tutu a special category funeral, usually designated for presidents and very important people. He handed South Africa's multicoloured flag to Tutu's widow, Leah -- a reminder of her husband's description of the post-apartheid country as the “Rainbow Nation”.
South Africa has been marking a week of mourning, culminating with two days of lying in state.
Several thousand people, some of whom had travelled across the
country, filed past a diminutive rope-handled casket made of pine, adorned simply by a bunch of carnations.
Under a grey sky and drizzle, mourners were ushered into the cathedral. Rains, according to historian Khaya Ndwandwe “are a blessing” and shows that Tutu's “soul is welcome” to heaven.
Mourners included close friends and family, clergy and guests, including former Irish President Mary Robinson, who read a prayer.
Under apartheid, South Africa's white minority cemented its grip with a panoply of laws based on the notion of race and racial segregation, and the police ruthlessly hunted down oppo
nents, killing or jailing them.
With Nelson Mandela and other leaders sentenced to decades in prison, Tutu in the 1970s became the emblem of the struggle. The purple-gowned figure campaigned relentlessly. Only his robes saved him from prison.
Tutu's moral firmness and passion went hand- in- hand with self- deprecatory humour and a famously cackling laugh. For his funeral, Tutu picked as a guiding quote the scripture from the New Testament's Gospel of St John where Jesus addresses his disciples after their last supper. It reads: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. “