Ryland Fisher
Ten years ago, just before Archbishop Tutu turned 70, I was the only South African journalist and, as far as I know, the only journalist in the world who interviewed him.
It was less than a month after the terror attacks on the United States and the world’s media was, momentarily, not interested in South Africa.
As the Arch, as he is affectionately known, prepares to turn 80 next Friday, things were a bit different this time. I had to join a list of journalists, local and abroad, who wanted to interview the man who, despite announcing his retirement last year, refuses to get out of the media headlines.
I have to declare upfront that the Arch has always been one of my favourite people and, in our many interactions over the years, he has never failed to impress me with his humility and willingness to help others.
One of the first indications for me that Tutu is serious about his retirement is that his daughter, Mpho, has returned home to run the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation and, all indications are, that in the years to come, she will become the Tutu that everyone will be quoting.
It is for this reason I thought I should take my daughter, Raisa, who is starting out as a journalist, along to conduct the interviews with Desmond and Mpho Tutu.
I also decided, in my limited time with the Arch, I would not ask him about the big stories that have been in the media lately, but to reflect a little on his life and the times he became frustrated with God.
Despite his age, and getting tired quicker nowadays, Tutu is still very lucid and very snappy in his comments. I could see this when he tried to interview Raisa and me, in response to questions we had asked him.
I reminded him that I interviewed him 10 years ago and he quickly responded: “So, what changes have you seen in me” and gave one of his trademark Tutu chuckles.
When Raisa asked him about whether he had concerns about his daughter becoming a priest, he asked her in return: “Now what did your dad say when you said you also wanted to be a journalist?” once again accompanied by a chuckle.
Raisa began by asking him about his passion against child marriages and what can be done to stop this concerning practice. For once, the serious Tutu stepped in.
“We’ve just been to New York and we’re very thrilled to have had the opportunity of highlighting such a ghastly custom. If nothing happens, 10 million girl children under the age of 18 will have become brides, 10 million in a year. All of them would have stopped going to school and if they give birth at age 15 or under, they are five times more likely to die than young women 19 and over.
“Researchers have found that we would not be able to achieve six of the eight millennium development goals because of child marriages.
“You obviously want to enlist the support of as many people in the community as possible. We found that it can happen. We visited Ethiopia, and found that, as a result of organisations working with religious and other community leaders, that it is possible for people to begin to discuss and say that this is something we want to stop.
“Our goal is to end this problem in a generation. If you are able to get a girl to stay at school, at least until high school, when she gets married, she’s not likely to agree that her child should get married when she’s under 18.
“The repercussions for communities are very considerable. Women who are relatively well-educated are some of the best multipliers of community wealth. If you want a community to develop, you have to educate the women. What is needed is to end this practice and to keep girls at school for as long as possible, getting them to become professionals.
“There is no question at all about the positive effects of that. You’d be able to, with one stroke as it were, improve child health, maternal health, and you could begin to make a difference on gender equality.
“Most of the girls we saw were married at about 12. One of the girls said to us: ‘You know what, previously, my husband never called me by my name, he used a derogatory term. I had to do everything, I had to clean the house, prepare the meals, I had to clean the children and then I had to go work in the field, and he sometimes even wanted me to wash his feet.
‘Now that the things have changed’ – and you could see her face glowing – she says, ‘he calls me by my name. He even fetches water. Now we sit and we discuss, we share chores.’ And you could see that the marriage has also been enriched.
By dealing with child marriages, you’d also be able to deal with things like HIV/Aids, because when a girl marries a much older man, he’s usually someone who has been very sexually active and possibly HIV-positive. Just imagine a 12, 13-year-old with a 40-year-old man. It’s almost just so ghastly.”
Raisa asked Tutu whether it was a proud moment in his life when he found out that his daughter was becoming a priest.
“We were proud whatever they chose. We said we would support them in whatever they chose. In fact, originally, Mpho said that she wanted to become a lawyer. However, her first degree was in electrical engineering, which she has not used. We were quite surprised when she said that she wants to go to seminary.
“Well yes, I am glad. One daughter is in public health. We supported her and we are thrilled that she is doing something that she wants to do.
“I supposed I’m just a tiny little bit more proud of Mpho, because she is following in her father’s footsteps more or less (he bursts out laughing). But I hope that most parents would say: ‘my child, whatever you choose and believe, if that is what you want to do, we are thrilled for you and we would want to support you in your choice.’
I noticed, but did not point out to him, that while he spoke about his two daughters, that he did not mention his son Trevor, who has been known to be very controversial, for some of the wrong reasons.
Raisa asked whether he had any concerns about her decision.
“No, not really, do you mean that I might have been jealous that she preaches better than me? (laughs) I think she does actually. She’s very much smarter than her daddy.
“I just hope that she will be the best that she can be in what she has chosen and that she will find it fulfilling.
“Now what did your dad say when you said you also wanted to be a journalist?”
“My dad asked me why,” Raisa replied. “After that, everybody would say the same thing about, oh, you are following in your father’s footsteps. After a while it gets a bit annoying.”
Tutu responded: “You chose it because you wanted it, not because your dad happened to be a journalist.”
“Yes”, Raisa replied, “I suppose he had some sort of impact, but we are on different paths of journalism.”
Raisa then asked him about writing a book together and how this impacted on the relationship with his daughter.
“I said to you half facetiously that she is better than her dad. In this book, she does most of the work, almost all of the work, Someone had sent me an email saying that he had noticed that, at the end of each chapter there was something from God, which Mpho composed, and this person was saying how incredibly helpful he had found those last bits in each chapter. This was all Mpho’s creation.
“I would say that God has given her certain gifts. One can only marvel at how generous God can be and one would want to see her blossom.”
Did he have future plans to write another book with his daughter?
“Ha, I don’t know. It may possibly be and since our first experience was a very fulfilling one, I would not dread that possibility. I’ll be glad for it to happen. I hope my judgement is not clouded by the biological relationship. (laughs) I think she does have a gift in counselling and I have to be careful that I am not blinded by, as you say, blood is thicker than water. If I have to make an assessment, she has constantly surprised me by the very sound pieces of advice that she gives.”
I decided to ask him about some of the low points in his life. Most of his higlights, such as receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 and becoming South Africa’s first black Anglican archbishop has been well documented.
“One of the low points of my life was when I was the chaplain at Fort Hare when people like Barney Pityana and others were in the student body and they were all expelled because they had been demonstrating, asking for a more accountable administration. I remember on that particular occasion being very upset with God, when these kids were turfed off campus with nothing. They were told go get their luggage and each one was accompanied by a police officer.
“They were put on buses and trundled off to a station with no food. I was really very angry with God and it was at similar kinds of situations, eg June 16, finding that so many of our kids had been killed and God was doing nothing about it. I found this deeply upsetting. It made me challenge God.
On many of the occasions when one had those massacres, Boipatong, etc. when the security apparatus rode roughshod and were completely unaccountable, at those moments, we were at a very low ebb and things were not looking good. When you had people killed in detention, like Steve Biko in 1977. We had a spate of that kind of stuff and it just seemed they were blatantly getting away with murder and that really shook one’s fate. We had hit rock bottom. And then, when we had the intergroup strife, so-called black on black violence, when it seemed that black lives were cheap.”
I asked him whether, in those dark days, he believed that we would end up in a situation where we would have our freedom.
“Oh yes, I had no doubt that we would eventually win our freedom. The only question was whether one would have been there. There was never any doubt that we would be free. And when it came, the speed at which it all happened was quite breath-taking.
“But, even as you know, that period, 1990 to 1994, was an awful period for us. The intergroup strife was abominable. We had the national peace accord, which was an instrument that tried to rein in the carnage. It was awful; there were drive-by shootings, people being mown down on the trains. They (and he did not indicate who he was referring to) really wanted to subvert the process, and if you consider what was happening in KZN and in some of these areas like Sharpeville, where you had hostels. They were quite vicious. Even with all of that, one never abandoned that belief that we were going to make it, that we were going to be free.”
And what does her think about the quality of our freedom today?
“There are many, many good things. The most important is that we are free. No one can stop me in the street to ask for my pass. People used not to have the freedom to go anywhere in life, where you had curfew laws, the influx control laws. When I was Bishop of Johannesburg, I had to go to the pass office to be endorsed in and Leah had to have her pass stamped with a thing that said she had permission to be in the area of Johannesburg as long as she was married to this man. (laughs)
“We lived in both our house in Soweto and the bishop’s house in Westcliffe, and they would stop us because they wanted to strip-search my wife and daughters on the side of the road. It’s incredible really.
“All those abominations are gone. It is very difficult to talk to people who have never been un-free and try to describe to them what it feels like to be free when for so long you were not. There is such a massive difference between what we are now and what we were.
“The fact that at least on paper, you are saying there is free medical care for kids up to five and expectant mothers.
“For all of us, what we have become was demonstrated in the soccer and rugby world cups. If you had predicted in my presence that South Africa could be so patriotic, I would have told you to go see your psychiatrist.
“I mean, where else have you heard of a sports team being given a send-off? I can’t think that I have ever come across something like that. Yes, teams are welcomed back when they have won the trophy, but here 65 000 people come to say goodbye to the team and I can bet you that many of those in the crowd would not have known the difference between a try and scrum and yet they were there. We really do have an incredible spirit.
“The pride that we have now in the Springboks is quite incredible when you think that, only a few years ago, almost all black people supported the team opposing the South African team.
“And it is a team that still has not significantly transformed. It only has about three black players, yet that has not significantly shaken people to say what about representivity. There are many good things about our country today.”
And some of his concerns?
“Unlike in the apartheid dispensation, when parliament had the sovereignty, we now have the Constitution. That does change the quality of the debate. I think the ruling party has not yet understood that the Constitution has the sovereignty, the last word, and not parliament.
“Maybe we assumed a great deal. We assumed that we would remain as altruistic as we were during the struggle. If you had approached anybody who had been involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, all of them would have said that they are involved in the struggle for the sake of freedom. Whether I am there to enjoy that freedom or not is totally irrelevant. I am going to give it my all for the sake of the freedom of us all. We thought that spirit would transfer automatically to the post-apartheid era and sadly it has not.
“We have lost or seemingly have lost that self-sacrificing, altruistic, being there for the sake of others and not for the sake of self-aggrandisement.”
At this point Tutu started getting restless and I realised that we would have to end the interview soon. He said only half-joking: “Wanneer gaan ons klaarmaak, man? Ek wil gaan slaap. (When are we going to finish, man? I want to go sleep.)
I asked him whether he always wanted to become a priest.
“No, I wanted to become a doctor and I was even more determined when I contracted TB. I was admitted to Wits medical school, but we did not have the lolly. (He laughs out loud.)
“So I went to teacher training. I was a teacher until Verwoerd introduced Bantu education in high schools. He had already introduced it into primary schools. I did not have too many options, but my wife and I were very clear that we did not want to be part of ramming down our children’s throat this travesty of an education and the only viable option that remained was to become a priest. Fortunately for me, I was accepted as a candidate. I don’t know what I would have done if the bishop said to me: nee, nie jy nie (no not you).” He gives another huge laugh.
I asked him whether he thought things would have been different if he pursued a different career, for instance if he became a medical doctor or had remained an English teacher. The world might have been deprived of Desmond Tutu, the spiritual leader.
“One of the most outstanding leaders in Soweto was Dr (Nathatho) Motlana. I don’t think he has been given the recognition that he deserves, he died about a year or so ago. He was the chair of the Committee of 10, a most extraordinary person. If I had done something else, I might not have had the platform, but you did have people like Dr Motlana, and you also had some teachers. For instance, Tom Manthatha (another member of the Committee of 10) was a teacher and they stood out against the system.”
I had to ask him about his invitation to the Dalai Lama and whether, at this late stage, he remained optimistic that he would receive permission to visit South Africa.
“Sensibly, if he was going to be given a visa, they would have done that long ago. It is highly unlikely and the trick is not to have too long a period where people could have a field day clobbering government. I mean, they could still surprise us, but it is something of a sad spectacle.
“You would think that in a truly democratic South Africa, he would be welcome. This is a great man. In any other part of the world, he would be treated like a head of state. The last time I was with him in Paris, he had a huge retinue, security, outriders and things like that, you know. You would have thought that South Africa would have welcomed him.”
I told Tutu that, when I interviewed him 10 years ago, he indicated to me that he intended to retire and he restated this last year. He laughs.
“Last year when I reiterated and re-confirmed my decision, I had engagements to which I had already committed. I said that there were two things from which I would not retire; the Elders and a new initiative, e-health telemedicine – I think I’m a patron or something there. I am going to continue because I think it is a fantastic innovation.
“But I am going to surprise you – ek gaan swyg.” He laughs out loud again and turns to Raisa. “Why are you smiling like that, you don’t believe me. How can you have someone not believe an archbishop?”
Roger Friedman, a former colleague at the Cape Times who now works closely with Tutu, asked: What is swyg?” to which Tutu replies: “You don’t know swyg. It is to keep quiet, man.”
My final question is about his legacy.
“You can’t ask someone about his legacy. That is for other people to worry about. You cannot sit and say you want to be remembered in this way or that way,” he said as he gets up and said he was going to rest a bit in his room. It was just before noon.
After the interview, Tutu asked me about the welfare of a mutual friend from the United States. The Rev Kent “Buck” Bellmore, who used to be his chaplain at Emory University. Loyalty, it is clear, is one of his strong trademarks.
Friedman pointed out that I did not get to ask him about his support for Arsenal football club, but I did not want to embarrass him. I asked him, however, and he just shakes his head.
At 80, he remains as sharp as ever.
(In the first picture below, I interview Archbishop Tutu in Milnerton. In the second picture, I am with my daughter, Raisa, and Archbishop Tutu’s daughter, Mpho. We interviewed the two of them together.)
