JONATHAN JANSEN | 'We are going to pray': How the Arch brought me to tears as UFS vice-chancellor

It was the Arch who would teach me in very profound and practical ways what it really means to be a Christian

29 December 2021 - 06:00
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
Flowers at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town pay respect to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu ahead of his funeral on Saturday.
Flowers at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town pay respect to the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu ahead of his funeral on Saturday.
Image: Esa Alexander

I would not be here today, at least not as a university professor, were it not for then Bishop Desmond Tutu.

The black South African Anglican priest joined with a white American Presbyterian minister, David Smock, to raise political support and financial backing for black South Africans to obtain advanced degrees in the USA since the 1980s. The goal? To prepare a new generation of highly skilled workers to “take over” important leadership roles when apartheid ended.

That was the prescience of the Arch at a time when many of my generation did not think the Boers (in the language of the day) would give up power. When years later I reminded Arch of his impact on the trajectory of my professional life, he lit up when he recognised our connection.

Everything about Arch went against the grain of my conservative evangelical upbringing. He was not born again. He once wrote that God is not a Christian (that can throw any Bible-punching believer). He was Anglican and wore a frock. In the church of my upbringing, he was going to hell. And of course, he was outspoken about gay rights. In case there was any doubt, he once said he would rather go hell than a homophobic heaven.

It is embarrassing to admit these things today but, trust me, not everyone then or now bought into the politics of "this meddlesome priest". Yet it was the Arch who would teach me in very profound and practical ways what it really means to be a Christian. None more so than on a life-changing weekday in his offices somewhere in Milnerton.

We had made a decision at the University of the Free State (UFS) to go beyond the criminal proceedings in the courts and seek justice through reconciliation when four white male students racially abused five black workers.

It was a very dark time in the history of higher education and on the Bloemfontein campus of this century-old university. The country was split between those who thought I was a close relative of the devil and those who believed that this was a very South African and indeed very Christian thing to do.

Julius Malema, then the firebrand leader of the ANC Youth League, understood the political and educational logics of bringing back the four students to campus within the process we envisaged. That put out some flames. But it was the Arch’s public letter in all the media that really shifted the political grounds. He wrote a letter of support released to all the media with the memorable words "forgiveness is not for sissies".

Now I was like the errant student called to the principal’s office waiting for the Arch to emerge for our scheduled meeting in this lowbrow area on the outskirts of Cape Town proper. He was uncharacteristically late, which made me worry even more. Would he chastise me in private even if he supported us in public? I could not know.

Then, with a solemn face, the Arch emerged saying nothing. I prepared for the worse.

Once inside his sparse office, he sat down on the one couch and I was told to sit down on another, just opposite him.

He grabbed my hand and said, ‘We are going to pray.’ My heart was in my throat. I could not have imagined what would happen next.

He grabbed my hand and said, ‘We are going to pray.’ My heart was in my throat. I could not have imagined what would happen next. In a soft voice, he thanked God for my life and leadership. He prayed that I would continue to have strength and courage in my work as a university vice-chancellor. He held my hand tight as he lifted me up in this solemn intercession. I felt the tears running down my face.

The Arch had committed to the justice and reconciliation project of the UFS. He would visit the campus often on invitation from a colleague I had recruited from UCT, Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who was doing groundbreaking research on traumatic memory and the work of reconciliation.

On one of those visits, I was feeling a little down after a savage week in the press. But I had to be positive for the Arch was coming. As the doors swung open, there he was with Ma Leah and pronounced knowingly and laughingly, ‘They are coming for you, boetie!’

We hugged and laughed non-stop. All my anxieties went away.

He was no soft, political teddy bear. He was tough, uncompromising, and unbought. He had hardly died when the ruling party politicians tried to own his legacy and steal the limelight (God knows, they need it). But these are the same people who denied him an invitation to Mandela’s funeral and a speaking slot on the main programme of a Johannesburg memorial for the founding father of our democracy. They were stung by his criticism of their corruption and denying his dear friend the Dalai Lama a visa to South Africa.

He fought the racist apartheid rulers with the same force that he fought the corrupt postapartheid rulers.

When our great leaders were either in prison (like Mandela) or in exile (like Tambo), it was the Arch who confronted the deadly security forces on the streets of the townships in one moment, and rescuing a falsely accused impimpi from a certain necklacing. He was our Consoler-in-Chief at so many funerals of comrades killed in the struggle.

And in all of this he gave us hope. He laughed with a sincerity that reminded us of our humanity when our collective backs were against the wall. He prayed for us when many had given up on higher rescue. He showed us that to be Christian is to be generous in your faith.

When I die, his bosom buddy the Buddhist Dalai Lama said, I will remember his (Tutu’s) special, monk-like face. He doesn’t mind death, Tutu said just before that, because there is reincarnation. Two men from opposite sides of the world, in faith and heritage, holding hands as they express their love for each other and their faith in our humanity.

Whether it is reincarnation or the resurrection, the spirit of Mpilo Desmond Tutu lives among us.

TimesLIVE


subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now

Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Speech Bubbles

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.