Listening to the silent majority

[115]

The day I met Philip Nhalpo in Mhluzi, The Sowetan carried an emotional editorial on Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The black paper reacted to Tutu's call to save the life of mass murderer Barend Hendrik Strijdom in tandem with sparing the lives of 14 blacks condemned in the Upington trial for killing a black policeman. Unlike their usually professional journalism, The Sowetan didn't even mention the fact that Tutu actually proposed an exchange for the lives of 14 blacks together with the life of one white man. They took off on a purely emotional plea to sing the praise of the Archbishop, which seemed particularly hard to swallow, since it lacked every ingredient of calm reflection and reasoned analysis, which ought to be the basis for any editorial. ‘We have seen the courage by this cleric,’ editorialised The Sowetan, ‘in the terrible days of the countrywide unrest, we have seen him risk his life to save people who were believed to be traitors to their own folk.’^92.

Like everyone else, The Sowetan is entitled to its opinions. Except in

92. The Sowetan, June 3, 1989

[p. 160]

the face of the fact that when an editorial flies this folksy Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a self-appointed political priest, and quite dangerous in the light of the imperative interests of South Africa, including those of blacks. ‘Tutu is the man who set off the disinvestment sanctions campaign,’ editorialised The Citizen correctly,^93. ‘that has brought unemployment to so many blacks - and now he is calling for a diplomatic boycott of South Africa as well, with our ambassadors to be sent packing.’

Tutu is the priest who likened South Africa to Hitler's Germany, accusing the Pretoria government of seeking a final solution to the black problem as Adolf Hitler invented for the Jews. Tutu spoke as if the SADF had the gas chambers working around the clock. He coolly suggested that blacks should poison their employers some day, in the way Winnie Mandela used to advocate that the only way to obtain freedom would be to necklace South Africa into liberation. When Mrs Mandela was banned for some time from Soweto the Dutch ambassador to South Africa would visit her at her home, whenever he was on his way to Cape Town by car, in the name, of course, of the Queen and the people of Holland. Now, all of a sudden in 1989, after Moeketsie Stompie Seipei was killed and the notorious Mandela football team affair, even the University of Utrecht reconsidered whether the honorary Doctorate of Law, bestowed on Mrs Winnie Mandela for her actions and behaviour in the struggle for freedom, should be withdrawn.

In 1989, State President pw Botha publicly asked Bishop Tutu whether he was aware of the anc - South African Communist Party alliance and that these forces had but one goal: to turn South Africa into a one-party Marxist state. ‘You owe all Christians an explanation of your exact standpoint,’ said Mr Botha, ‘for we are all adults and the time for bluffing and games are long past. The question must be asked whether you are acting on behalf of the Kingdom of God or the kingdom as promised by the ANC or the SACP. If it is one of the latter, say so, but do not hide behind the structures and the cloth of the Christian Church, because Christianity and Marxism are irreconcilable opposites.’

Gradually, opposition against the overseas campaigns of Tutu, Chikane, Boesak and Beyers Naudé increased during 1988. The United Workers Union of South Africa demonstrated with placards at Jan Smuts against the Bishop. Simon Magagula, the Union's President,

93. The Citizen editorial, March 21, 1988

[p. 161]

said, ‘We want to show Tutu that we are against his actions. We feel that sanctions and disinvestment will increase unemployment in South Africa. People will suffer more if additional sanctions are imposed.’ Even white members of the National Student Federation met Tutu at Cape Town airport with signs of protest and banners. Bishop Mzilikazi Masiya, spokesman for the United Aspostolic Ministers Council in Africa, claiming a membership of 3,5 million amongst black Christians spread over 850 churches in South Africa organised a demonstration in the centre of Pretoria protesting sanctions by Tutu and company. Chief Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi of KwaZulu strongly opposes sanctions and openly stated that Tutu and his fellow clergymen ‘represent nobody and are answerable to nobody, posture as our saviours and speak as if on our behalf’.

Now, for The Sowetan to write, ‘We are indeed proud to know Archbishop Tutu’ is weird and also dishonest. It totally ignores the true nature of this Nobel laureate for Peace who did embarrassingly little to promote peace within his own land, and instead urged the world, as a professional agitator, to help stir up ever more unrest, discord, plain suffering and hardship in his own country. It shows that memory is not a weapon, as Don Mattera believes. The editors of The Sowetan will regret this emotional editorial which failed to depict the life of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in its proper perspective.