‘I have visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories and have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian at Israeli military checkpoints. The inhumanity that won’t let ambulances reach the injured, farmers tend their land or children attend school. This treatment is familiar to me and the many Black South Africans who were corralled and harassed by the security forces of the Apartheid government.’
One can only assume that the cowardly Guardian editor Kath Viner and Jonathan Freedland aren’t keen for people to draw connections between the apartheid that Tutu fought and the Israeli apartheid system that they support.
It’s not often that the person who wins the Nobel Peace Prize, as Desmond Tutu did in 1984, actually deserves it. All too often it is war criminals like Henry Kissinger, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Barack Obama who pick up the gong or at best some nonentity or UN agency.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has won in 3 times, most notably in 1944 when it won it ‘for the great work it has performed during the war in behalf of humanity.’ despite refusing to raise the holocaust with the Nazis because they considered it an ‘internal German problem.’ In 1919 they awarded it to the White Supremacist President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.
Desmond Tutu however richly deserved the prize. He was the second South African winner of the Nobel prize after the founder of the ANC, Albert Luthuli won it in 1960.
Throughout the 1980s Tutu played a key role in drawing national and international attention to the evils of apartheid. He supported Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against South Africa as a means of putting pressure on Apartheid’s rulers and drew the ire of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
Born on 7 October 1931 in Klerksdorp, South Africa, Tutu became the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches [SACC] in 1978. This was widely seen as sending a message to South African President P.W. Botha’s administration that the days of Apartheid were numbered.
In 1985, at the height of the township rebellions Tutu was installed as Johannesburg’s first Black Anglican bishop, and in 1986 he was elected the first Black archbishop of Cape Town, becoming the primate of South Africa’s 1.6 million-member Anglican church.
The Anglican, Catholic, Methodist churches condemned apartheid, while the Dutch Reformed Church and the South Africa’s Jewish Board of Deputies supported it. It was not until 1985 that the BOD realised the writing was on the wall and changed its position. Although now we remember the Jewish giants of the Apartheid struggle – Joe Slovo, Dennis Goldberg, Ruth First, Ronnie Kassrills and Albie Sachs – what isn’t often understood is that they were ostracised by the Jewish community, which is the most pro-Zionist in the world.
It is worth bearing in mind that in 1982, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, sent a five-member delegation to South Africa to demonstrate world support for the SACC
“to make the point [to the apartheid government] that you are not simply dealing with a domestic matter. If you touch Desmond Tutu, you touch a world family of Christians.”
Fast forward to today and the Establishment toady who is the present incumbent at Lambeth Palace, Justin Welby, offers comfort to the oppressors and stays silent about the plight of the Palestinians. On his visit to Palestine in 2017 he carefully avoided an ‘own goal’ by saying absolutely nothing about the oppression of the Palestinians.
The Guardian's 'liberal' censors filter out a comment asking why there was no mention of Tutu's support for the Palestinians
Instead Welby made the usual visit by dignatories to Israel’s holocaust propaganda museum Yad Vashem, which was describedby holocaust researcher Daniel Blatman as a
hard-working laundromat, striving to bleach out the sins of every anti-Semitic, fascist, racist or simply murderously thuggish leader or politician like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Italy’s Matteo Salvini
Welby even rowed back an articlewhich he had co-authored last week in The Telegraph complaining of Israel’s attack on the church in Jerusalem.
You wonder how this Tory toe rag has the audacity to talk about oppression
But the person who deserves a prize for his chutzpah is Keir Starmer, who is presently busy expelling Jews from the Labour Party (in the name of fighting ‘anti-Semitism’. Starmer, who carefully avoided all mention of the word ‘Apartheid’ in his statement describedTutu as "a tower of a man and a leader of moral activism" who "dedicated his life to tackling injustice and standing up for the oppressed".
That is of course true, but coming from a moral pygmy and a habitual liar, his tribute is worthless. It was, after all, Jeremy Corbyn who got arrested opposing Apartheid. Starmer’s only contribution to the world of injustice is to do his best to increase it. If anyone is responsible for the incarceration and slow death of Julian Assange it is Starmer.
There are many heart-felt tributes to Desmond Tutu from groups such as Africa4Palestine Statement which talked about how peace-loving peoples across the world are ‘mourning the loss of Archbishop Desmond Tutu – a dear friend of the Palestinian people.’
The Guardian's shameful censorship is another reason why people should boycott this mouthpiece of corporate neo-liberalism
#Africa4Palestine Board Member, Professor Farid Esack, a personal friend of the Archbishop, paid this tribute:
“We and the Palestinians have lost an indomitable fighter, a courageous leader and a moral icon without equal. We are bereft of a prophet who consistently warned against ideas of cheap peace which may come without justice. I am immensely grateful for having travelled and worked with the Archbishop in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, in solidarity with the Palestinians against Israeli occupation and in supporting various other causes. His boundless love, his wit and humour and his unflinching and principled commitment to a better world will always inspire us”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZaMvQbIoWs
Archbishop Desmond Tutu addressing a 2014 rally for Palestine in Cape Town - the march, attended by over 250 000 people, was the largest that South Africa has witnessed since the dawn of democracy.
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