A toast to the Rainbow Nation's man of peace

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (pic courtesy Timeslive)

Asked yesterday what he wanted for South Africa, Desmond Mpilo Tutu said: “I will go to my grave happily when I see us become what we have it in us to become: caring, compassionate, gentle, sharing.”

Tutu was announcing that he was finally withdrawing from public life, starting in October, when he turns 79.

“The time has now come to slow down,” he said.

Much has been written about Tutu's courageous role in the fight for democracy - how he used the pulpit to stand up to the apartheid government when the space for political opposition had been closed off, how he helped galvanise international opinion against the terrible policies of BJ Vorster and PW Botha, how he highlighted the daily abuses suffered by ordinary people.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, was unequivocal in his opposition to apartheid- and to the violent resistance that sprang up to overthrow “the system”.

Who could forget those images of the unimposing cleric from Klerksdorp rescuing a suspected impimpi from a bloodthirsty mob at a funeral in the 1980s or, a decade later, Tutu, as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, weeping during a torture victim's testimony?

Tutu has retired twice before - as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, in 1996, and when the TRC's work was done. He will now retire from a university post, withdraw from a UN commission set up to combat genocide, and he will no longer give media interviews. But he will continue to support his Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation and will carry on his work with The Elders, the eminent persons' group.

We hope that he gets to spend many tranquil days in the sun, sipping his beloved rooibos tea, with his wife Leah at his side.

(This story was provided and used with permission by Timeslive.)