The loss of Archbishop Tutu: My Heart is Broken

Photo credit: Mark Doyle

“Spring op (jump on), ousie,” chuckled the Arch. “Let’s give these guys something to talk about.”

I was South Africa’s Ambassador to Ireland and the Arch was in Dublin for a reconciliation event. During a press event, he had spotted a photographer’s motorbike and asked if he could get on it. He then encouraged me to get on as well, and of course I said yes. How could I not?

I loved the Arch and even though I have known for some time that he was getting very frail, my heart is simply broken today.  

He once told me how “incredibly angry” he would get with God and remonstrate with Him/ Her during the Truth Commission process, and for a while now, I have been remonstrating with God, but for a different reason. I have tried to explain to God that I feel strongly that there are a few people in the world that should never die, because they are just too needed in our broken world. That we need their guiding light to remind us to do better, to love and to fearlessly fight injustice. So, I wish I could have convinced God to have left the Arch with us…forever.

Even though I would never be so arrogant as to describe myself as a friend of the Arch, my path crossed the Arch’s at some of the most important milestones in my personal and political life.

The first time I met the Arch was during the late 1980’s at Stellenbosch University. It was his first visit to the university and, most probably, the first visit of any black speaker. For days, there were protests on campus against his appearance, and pamphlets were distributed using selective quotes to “prove” that he was “the Antichrist" and "a Communist". On the evening of his appearance, tempers were fraying. The security police were everywhere, as were the bomb squad, military, and campus police.

It was not long before the handful of left-wing students got into physical fights inside the venue with the more mainstream students. The Arch, however, came into the hall calmly and faced the angry crowd. "Goeie naand" he said in Afrikaans.

You could hear a pin drop and the discomfort among the majority of students was tangible. He then went on to tell a very funny joke about how he and Brigitte Bardot ended up together in heaven. His well-known high pitch laughter disarmed even the most conservative person in the audience and by the end of the evening, he had the whole audience eating out of the palm of his hand.  He even got a standing ovation. Even though I had already started to question the political ideology that I had been taught since infancy, I knew that night for sure that my political path would lead me closer to Tutu and away from the Bothas and De Klerks of our time.

A few years later it was he who hugged me tightly on the day I was inaugurated as an MP for the ANC and reminded me to continue to be brave. Two years later, it was he who was the one who showed us again what true courage was when he cried with us as our shameful past was exposed at the TRC. 

When people so bravely exposed their almost unbearable pain and grief, he comforted them and held them – both physically and emotionally. And when the apartheid leaders failed to apologise, he, the one who had nothing to apologise for, apologised to victims because someone had to.

Then, when I’m sure he would have liked to take a rest after the decades of struggle and the grueling TRC process, he had to become our voice of conscience yet again. As the morally corrupt decisions, abuse of power, and human rights abuses confronted us at a pace no one could have thought possible pre-1994, it was the Arch who fearlessly continued to speak out.

By this time, I was already in Ireland as Ambassador and he came to stay a few times with me and my family. To this day, I try (rather unsuccessfully) to emulate his routine of early morning prayer and quiet time, which I observed him doing without fail every day.

Although a man of the cloth, part of the Arch’s greatness was that he never took himself too seriously and although deeply spiritual, he was not pious.

Once, when he stayed with me, Bono from U2 and his wife Ali came over to see the Arch.  The Arch offered to say a prayer and to do a blessing for the about-to-be-released “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” album. We stood in a circle as the Arch prayed in Xhosa first, and when it sounded like he was winding down, Bono, in a real rock 'n' roll gesture, lifted up his fist into the air and said "Amen!". The Arch opened his one eye and said: "I am not finished, man!". He then closed his eyes and continued in Afrikaans . . . Once more, it sounded like he was winding down, but before Bono could do anything, the Arch, again with one eye closed, said: "Not yet!". He continued in English and then gave Bono a little nudge: "Now!" he said, and Bono threw his fist into the air with an “Amen!”

A few years later I hosted an informal dinner for the Arch and a few friends in a private room of a restaurant in Dublin. We had a lovely evening. However, in the middle of a very intense and heated discussion about the peace process in Northern Island, the door to the private room suddenly swung open and two scantily dressed burlesque dancers came in.

A silence fell in the room and conscious that we were in the presence of a holy man, we stared over at them in horror. "Hello," the two women purred. Luckily, before any more could happen, a frazzled manager ran in. "Wrong room, wrong room!" he said, "Your function is upstairs!". There was a slightly uncomfortable pause after they left, but then the Arch said, with exaggerated ‘disappointment’, "That was not very Christian to chase them out like that. We should invite them back for something to eat. They looked hungry."

His humour and lack of piousness did not mean that he did not always remain faithful to his calling as a spiritual leader. A few years ago, I was due to meet the Arch. His assistant called and said: “The Arch wants to know when you were last in church.” I had to admit not too recently, to which she said: “The Arch suspected that and says you must come to the Eucharist on Friday and then you can have coffee afterwards”.

I did, of course.

He also never stopped ‘sweating the small stuff’. During one of his visits to Dublin, he made my driver stop in a business area and told me to wait in the car while he got something. A few days later a big bunch of flowers arrived with a card: “Thank you for everything, ousie”.

We have lost one of the biggest moral compasses the world has ever known.

For almost 7 decades, when so many often felt unheard and unseen because of the colour of their skin or economic status, the Arch was always there. 

Now he has left us.

Yet we can keep the Arch’s legacy alive by committing to do a little better every day, to be a little more tolerant to those who we share this country and world with, to speak out fearlessly in the face of injustice, all while laughing a little at ourselves. Above all, we can love in abundance – like he did.

One of my fondest memories of the Arch is when I once spent a few hours interviewing him. We sat on a couch in his hotel room and for most of the interview, he had his arm around me. At some stage, I asked him what his favourite piece of music was. To my great surprise, he said: “Beethoven’s piano concerto number 1”. He then started to sing it – with perfect pitch and timing.

Today I will listen to Beethoven’s piano concert while mourning the fading of one of Africa’s brightest lights.

Hamba kahle, dearest Arch. I hope that when you arrive at the gates of heaven, Bridget Bardot will be waiting for you and that you two can have a good laugh together.

This ousie will miss you. Rest in peace.