JOHANNESBURG — Sipping tea and serving his wife her first cup every morning in bed. Watching soccer. Spending more time with his family. Reading. Writing. Praying.
And just thinking.
Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu sketched out a quiet, blissful future at a news conference Thursday where he announced his decision to withdraw from public life.
All he wants in his old age, he said, is a peaceful family life in his hometown, Cape Town. No more interviews, no more speeches, no more plane-hopping.
The Nobel peace laureate, along with former President Nelson Mandela, is one of South Africa’s most beloved figures, regarded as the country’s voice of conscience. Although he retired as an Anglican archbishop in 1996, he has remained a prominent public figure.
But on Thursday, he said will retire from public life in October, when he turns 79.
From now on, he says, he’ll “shut up.” Mostly.
“Sometimes, I might find I can’t resist,” he said.
“The time has now come to slow down, to sip rooibos tea with my beloved wife in the afternoons, to watch cricket and rugby and soccer and tennis, to travel to visit my children and grandchildren, rather than to conferences and conventions and university campuses,” he said. “I think I’ve done as much as I can and really do need time for the other things that I have wanted to be doing.
“I do want a little more quiet.”
Tutu was one of apartheid’s fiercest opponents. In the late 1990s, he headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where many people guilty of crimes under apartheid confessed and repented in return for amnesty.
Despite withdrawing from public life, he will still be a member of a group of elder statesmen including Mandela, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and others who campaign for peace and human rights. He will continue to support the Desmond Tutu Center for Peace, in Cape Town.
