The Greene County Democrat

Tag: late Archbishop Desmond Tutu

  • Newswire : Church of England bars Tutu’s Daughter from funeral

    Archbishop Tutu and his daughter, the Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth

     

     
    (TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) – The daughter of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu said she was “stunned” by the Church of England when they denied her the right to officiate at her godfather’s funeral because she is married to a woman.
     
    According to the Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth, an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Washington, DC, the Church barred her from officiating despite her late godfather’s personal wish that she lead the ceremony at his funeral. Her godfather, Martin Kenyon, died in England last week. He was 92.
     
    “You can’t speak a message of welcome and love and live a message of exclusion,” the Rev. Tutu van Furth said. “It’s incredibly sad,” she told BBC News. “It feels like a bureaucratic response with maybe a lack of compassion.”
     
    Martin Kenyon and Desmond Tutu became friends when they were both students at Kings College. Tutu would become a voice for LGBT equality, speaking in a video released by the Free & Equal campaign.
     
    “I cannot keep quiet when people are penalized for something about which they can do nothing,” Tutu declared. “First, when women are excluded just simply and solely because they are women. But more pernicious, more ghastly is the fact that people are penalized, killed, all sorts of ghastly things happen to them simply because of their sexual orientation. “I oppose such injustice with the same passion that I opposed apartheid.”
     
    Mr. Kenyon, a powerful force in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, was also an early, outspoken critic of the Anglican Communion’s stance on gay rights.
     
    However, its sister Anglican church in the US, The Episcopal Church, does allow clergy to enter into gay marriages.
     
    Marceline Tutu van Furth, a Dutch academic who is married to the Archbishop Tutu’s daughter, said the church told them it accepts priests in same-sex relationships but not if they are married.

     
    The Church of England and the Episcopal Church are tied together in the global Anglican Communion, which represents about 85 million worshipers around the world. The Episcopal Church has taken a stance in favor of acceptance of gay clergy and members, starting with the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, in New Hampshire in 2003.
     
    The Church of England, however, has said that under its religious laws, while it permits same-sex civil partnerships, it does not support same-sex marriage because it would go against its teachings. Gay clergy are expected to remain celibate, and those in same-sex marriages are not permitted to be ordained.
     
    Tutu remarked in 2013: “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place. I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this.”
     
    He added: “I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.”
     
    In the end, Tutu was able to fulfill her godfather’s wish as the service was moved from a church and was instead held in her godfather’s garden in Shropshire.
     
    GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORK creates and distributes news and feature articles on current affairs in Africa to media outlets, scholars, students and activists in the U.S. and Canada. Our goal is to introduce important new voices on topics relevant to Americans, to increase the perspectives available to readers in North America and to bring into their view information about global issues that are overlooked or under-reported by mainstream media.
     
     

  • Newswire: Russia’s extensive military sales in Africa, buy silence on critical U.N. vote on Ukraine

    Russian made Su-30K fighter jets sold to Ethiopia

    Mar. 7, 2022 (GIN) – “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
     
    Those were the prophetic words of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, recalled now by influencers on social media pressing South Africa to cut or reduce old “friendly ties” with Russia.
     
    But backing away from a long political and economic relationship with Moscow will not be easy. The eastern European nuclear power has already begun to call in the debt earned from years of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid support.
     
    Writing recently on the South African news site, iol.co.za, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in South Africa extolled the “traditionally friendly ties between our countries which date back to the struggle against apartheid.” They cited visits to the USSR in the 1920-30s by prominent ANC members, stalwarts of revolution such as Josiah Gumede, Moses Kotane and John Beaver Marks.
    Similarly in Ghana, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a personal letter to President Nana Akufo Addo congratulating him on the country’s 65th independence anniversary.
     
    “Please accept my sincere congratulations on the occasion of the National Holiday of the Republic of Ghana!” Putin addressed the Ghanaian leader. “The relations between Russia and Ghana are traditionally of a friendly nature. I am convinced that further development of a constructive bilateral dialogue and partnership meets the interests of our peoples, contributing to the peace and security on the African continent.”
     
    Africa’s hesitation to speak out at a recent U.N. vote against Russia’s unprovoked invading and bombing of Ukraine, may be linked to their Cold War ties. A more significant factor is Russia’s huge military footprint on the continent,” writes Will Brown, Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. 
     
    More than half of African nations have military cooperation agreements with Russia – the largest exporter of arms to sub-Saharan Africa. All Ethiopia’s jetfighters were supplied by Russia while Uganda’s combined force of five Mig21s and Sukhoi30s were also Russian supplied. Fifteen of Uganda’s 20-strong fleet of combat helicopters were also Russian supplied. Sudan has 35 Russian jetfighters and 67 helicopters.
     
    In the U.N. vote, 17 African countries refused to condemn Russia’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine. Another seven African countries refused to vote at all. Their leaders are all authoritarian or dictatorial with little regard for human rights abuses by their security forces. 
     
    But openly collaborating with Russia for the near future will carry significant reputational costs, warns Joseph Siegle, research director for the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington. “As the human costs from Russia’s unprovoked war mount, ties with Russia will become even more problematic.”