By Kapya Kaoma
Desmond Mpilo Tutu! Tata Tutu!
In our mamaland,
Ancestors, we mourn not!
Streaming tears our faces fill
libations of praise we pour
To water new trees to life
In your ancestral heart now possess!
Farewell Tata Tutu!
The whole world knew!
Small in human stature
Too big in prophetic outrage,
Softly covered in saintly humility,
That humbled the strong,
but the powerful gracefully taught,
To pause! To love! To dream!
God’s dream for common humanity!
O Tata Tutu! Will the world again,
see injustice, colonialism, racism,
oppression, xenophobia and corruption,
As hurting self as others,
God as all those in God’s own image made,
For how can we love God,
I mean the One who gave birth to us all,
How can we love ourselves,
I mean ourselves–real selves,
If we refuse to see ourselves in others?
Farewell! Tata Tutu! Farewell!
O Lion of Africa among our ancestors
perform your hard-earned victory dance!
With Lumumba, Mandela, Kaunda, mama Betty Kaunda and Winnie Mandela cheering on,
Tata Dance! Dance! Dance!
Is it not you who led them into a sacred dance,
That sacred justice dance
realized in liberating truth,
liberating truth born in painful
Memories of hurtful trauma,
We inflict on those we rob
the sacredness of ubuntu?
Farewell O Son of the Soil!
Farewell O Great Ancestor!
Don’t lie down!
Our ancestors don’t sleep!
Lead the dance! A justice dance!
Don’t let us give up,
the battle you began,
but never finished.
For all children of the Soil,
Whose existence Mother Africa denies,
Christians and Muslims curse,
But with ancestral love, you embrace,
With saintly love offer,
To Christ our Ancestor,
Living sacrifices!
Farewell O Son of the Soil!
Is it not you who taught and said trees cry?
Is it not you who said in Creation our ancestors and the Supreme Being meet?
Dance tata Tutu!
To the sounds of waves and waterfalls,
Tata Dance!
In African trees, rivers, mountains and ants,
Speak to deafening sounds of greediness,
Capitalism, corruption and exploitation.
This Earth,
With ancestral love,
Defend with divine hope.
Our Mpilo Inspire!
God’s dream set ablaze,
For Earth as for Humanity!
Fare thee well Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu and R.I.P. Hopefully HH will attend the funeral .
We praise Yahweh for Archbishop Tutu’s ministry in South Africa under very difficult conditions. He took the cross and finally the Lord allowed him to see Nelson Mandela released from
prison and a new South Africa born. In Zambia we remember Bishop Stephen Mumba who mediated for the nation for return to multipartism in 1991 between the two leaders Dr. Kenneth Kaunda and Mr. Frederick Chiluba. Multipartism is now being enjoyed in the country. God must be praised for raising leaders of this calibre.
When asked by a CNN reporter about his most memorable moment in life, Bishop Tutu replied it was when his first born son was born. Asked about what he regretted the most in life, his response was that it was when people including himself thought those he differed with ( in apparent reference to former minority racist South African rulers) were worse than themselves. In his view, we are all in some way God-like, born in the image of God. There is not only a streak of evil but more of goodness in all of us. Zambia can learn from Tutu’s humbling admission of his own mistakes by moving away from the current politics of demonizing others and thinking we are more righteous than them. That kind of politics is the root of ethnic cleansing we saw in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. A nation that…
A nation that prides itself in being Christian should be one whose rulers are not quick to see mistakes in others, but are ready to forgive mere mortals who disrupt their radio programme whilst in opposition and are ready to move on.
Great piece for this great son of the soil. how we pray that god raises up more tutus to continue lighting up the world.
Farewell tata Tutu.
In as much as I respect tutu as he was older than me, I still have more respect for my father Robert mugabe, who called tutu a little man. Tutu sided so much with the western world and left our father mugabe alone to fight for African land. Tutu was happy with westerners owning stolen land in Zimbabwe. Anyway rip
Stup!d KZ, The Arch had more brains in his pink fingernail than you in your entire body. And that you like Uncle Bob is no surprise: he was an even bigger crook than Edgar China Lungu!
No corruption you are a f00I suffering from inferiority complex. There is a reason President Robert Mugabe called Desmond tutu a little man who spoke devilish talk. Robert mugabe is a pan Africanist who couldn’t be f00Ied. This is why he was hated by your whlte masters. He was more intelligent than the whlte man you worship and yet today you will call him corrupt. Robert mugabe is the most intelligent presdent on earth ever