Cape Town: South Africa began to bid farewell on Saturday to the Archbishop of Desmond Tutu, the last big hero in his struggle against the apartheid, in the funeral that was stripped with tears and soaking wet.
It starts with the song of praise and the procession of the ulama along the hall burning incense and carrying candles in the church where Tutu will also be buried.
Tutu died on Sunday at the age of 90, triggered sadness among South Africans and tribute from world leaders for life spent to fight for injustice.
Famous for its politeness, Tutu gave instructions for simple and no-frills ceremonies, with cheap coffins, donations for charity instead of flower tribble and environmentally friendly cremation.
Mass Requiem began at 10 am (0800 GMT) at the St George Cape Town Cathedral where, over the years, Tutu used a pulpit to the rail against a brutal white minority regime.
That’s where he will be buried.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who will give a speech, given to tutu a special category of funerals, usually appointed to the president and very important people.
He will also give up a variety of South African flags to Tutu’s Widow, Leah – Reminder of her husband’s description of the post-apartheid country as “Rainbow Nation”.
South Africa has marked a one-week mourning, culminating with two days lying in the state.
Several thousand people, some of whom have traveled throughout the country, submitted through the coffin lying from a rope made of pine, decorated with a group of carnations.
Under the gray sky and drizzle, mourners are delivered to the cathedral.
Rain, according to Historian Khaya Ndwandwe “is a blessing” and shows that “soul is accepted” to heaven.
Mourners included close friends and families, pastors and guests, including former Irish President Mary Robinson, who will read prayer.
Other mourners are Elita, the widow of the last apartheid leader Fw de Klerk who died in November.
The striking absence of the funeral is one of Tutu’s friends, Dalai Lama.
He failed to travel because of the restrictions of old age and Covid, his representatives grabbed Dorjee, told AFP outside the church.
Tutu’s old friend, retired Bishop Michael Nuttall, who was the Anglican Church Dean when Tutu was Archbishop Cape Town, would give a sermon.
Both of them falsify a strong relationship, describe for many people how a white leader can work for a black leader.
Nuttall continued to write a memoir titled “Tutu number two” about their friendship.
Fighters under apartheid, South African white minority strengthened his grip with the offerings of law based on racial ideas and racial separation, and the police cruelly hunt opponents, kill or imprison them.
With Nelson Mandela and other leaders who were sentenced to tens of tens of years, Tutu in the 1970s became a symbol of the struggle.
The numbers of purple dress campaigned without stopping abroad, giving public lashes to the United States, Britain and Germany and other countries because they failed to slap sanctions on the apartheid regime.
At home, from the pulse, he slammed police violence against black people, including the shooting of school students during the 1976 Soweto rebellion.
Only his robe saved him from prison.
The Cabinet Minister and Anti-Apartheid Activist Patricia De Lille considering many protests of LED tutu marches.
His presence, he said, like an invisible shield and the police would not shoot or shoot tears “because they were afraid of him,” he said.
Humorafter Apartheid Dismantled and South Africa led its first free election in 1994, Tutu led the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, which exposed the past horrors in gloomy details.
He will then speak without fear of the Ruling African National Congress (ANC) for the inability of corruption and leadership.
The determination and passion of Tutu’s moral walked gradually with self-defense humor and chuckled.
For his funeral, Tutu chose as a guide to quoting the Bible from the New Testament of St John where Jesus discussed his students after their last dinner.
It reads: “This is my command, that you love each other because I have loved you.”