Archbishop Desmond Tutu has challenged South Africans to mobilise the spirit that made the soccer World Cup work to fight for press freedom.

Tutu, who is set to retire from public life in October, made the call in an unscripted speech at the Institute for Democracy, Idasa, in Cape Town yesterday.

"We are on a high - or we were on a high," he said in a reference to the World Cup experience.

The event had drawn South Africans together and demonstrated what they were capable of achieving.

"We were all of us on the same page. Why don’t we get onto the same page about the media? I’m just saying it must be odd to think that people who were together, moving in the same direction, could suddenly find that we are at odds with one another, that you bring something that virtually everybody rejects," he said.

Challenging opponents of the ANC's proposals for media controls to fight back, he said: "This is your country and it is going to become what you allow it to be."