Tutu's Ties to Lesotho

Excerpts from "Rabble-Rouser for Peace"

Desmond Tutu lived in Lesotho on two occasions in the 1970s, first when he taught theology at the University of Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland, and later when he was elected the Anglican Bishop of Lesotho. Of Tutu's links with the country, his biographer, John Allen, has written:

Tutu developed a deep affection for Lesotho, its language, Sesotho, and its people, to the extent that he continued afterwards to regard it as a second home. He described Sesotho, with its gentle consonants, as “the French of Africa.” He experienced the “grave and respectful politeness” towards outsiders which an early missionary traveler had identified as a national characteristic of the Basotho. He was impressed because they addressed a young boy with the same respectful term—ntate, “father”—they used for an adult.

He also fought hard for his diocese after being consecrated Bishop in Maseru, Lesotho, at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. James, pictured to the left.

When its theological students urgently needed accommodation, he appealed to his fellow bishops for help. He was traveling during the meeting at which the plea was discussed and turned down. “I have seldom felt more sick at heart and more deflated,” he wrote to the bishops when he returned, “than when I read the Episcopal Synod minute regarding theological education in Lesotho.… What has shattered me is the complete lack of sympathy and caring.… I pray that Lesotho should not be treated as a mere appendage of the Republic of South Africa. We have our integrity and autonomy, as well as the peculiarities of our specific context which                                                    should please be respected.”

Tutu also admired the Basotho nation, which had been forged out of disparate groups during the Mfecane (called the Lifaqane in Sesotho) by Moshoeshoe's ancestor, Moshoeshoe I, widely regarded as the leading southern African statesman of his time. The Tutus were friends of the royal family, dating back to when they took care of Moshoeshoe II's son during vacations while the boy was at school in England. The son, now King Letsie III, pictured to the right, retained warm memories of the Tutu family thirty years later and traveled to Johannesburg to attend Desmond and Leah's fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration.

From John Allen, “Rabble-Rouser for Peace: The Authorized Biography of
Desmond Tutu,” published by the Free Press, New York , 2006.    Used with permission.  All rights reserved. Copies are available for purchase on Amazon.com