‘Racism is a curse SA must escape’: Dr Ramphele on defaced Tutu mural

Dr Mamphele Ramphele, acting chairperson of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Trust, has condemned the latest action by supposed vandals: Writing the k-word, one of the country’s worst racial slurs, on a mural of the icon in Cape Town’s CBD.

Ramphele says such actions cast a slur on the country’s democracy and also speaks to the work still ahead to complete the journey to restore humanity.

She says this isn’t the first time Tutu has been subjected to such as in 1989 he was also the target of hateful graffiti.

“In the 1980s at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle Tutu was regularly threatened by hatemongers, including the security police. His family received horrible phone calls, he was the target of graffiti — and in one unsavoury incident, in 1989, a baboon foetus was hung outside their home in an attempt, police later said, to bewitch him,”

Dr Mamphele Ramphele

“Despite the archbishop’s consistent advocacy for nonracialism, justice, compassion and love, because of the prominence of his position in the church and the struggle, he was widely reviled in white society. If looks could kill he would have been dead many times over, he has often said,” Ramphele said.

Dr Ramphele on defaced Tutu mural

The discovery of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s mural comes two weeks before the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate turns 90, which Dr Mamphele Ramphele also acknowledged.

“Racism is a curse SA must escape. We have enough problems on our plate, including radical inequality in wealth and living standards still largely tracking the social, economic and environmental hierarchies of the past. We must work through unresolved reverberations from the past to build an inclusive nation at peace with itself and its humanity. A nation of conscious, critical thinking and educated citizens. That is an objective worthy of pursuing to honour the arch on his 90th birthday, and to honour ourselves,” Ramphele added.

Tutu is considered an icon and just like former president Nelson Mandela, gained global recognition for his efforts to fight apartheid in South Africa.