4 ms·

There is a suburb of Cape Town called Bishopscourt. It is high up on the hill, near the botanical garden, and filled with Anglophone old money, trees and mansio

There is a suburb of Cape Town called Bishopscourt. It is high up on the hill, near the botanical garden, and filled with Anglophone old money, trees and mansions. (1) It gets it's name of course from the "official residence of the Archbishop of Cape Town" (Anglican / Church of England). It was of course a "whites only" area under Apartheid until 1991 (2). Black people there could be assumed to be house or garden servants. When Mr Tutu was installed there as the first black Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986, he moved in without seeking exemption from this law (3). He would put on his jogging outfit and take his exercise on the streets there, smiling and waving to neighbours as if it was the most normal thing in the world. And in time, it was. That is praxis. he was one of the best of us, always seeking a way to reach out. 1) "ranked sixth richest suburb in South Africa" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishopscourt,_Cape_Town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishopscourt,_Cape_Town 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_Areas_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_Areas_Act 3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu#Archbishop_of_Cape_Town:_1986%E2%80%931994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu#Archbishop_of_Cap...

throwawaylinux 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  1) why would a US president want to live in the White house in DC? It doesn't matter what they want, the official residence comes with the job. I do not think that Mr Tutu spent every single day of his tenure in Bishopscourt - you are right, it wasn't his scene. But he was a common sight there. 2) It was literally illegal for Mr Tutu to live there, then. Doing so anyway, with the backing of a major church, who chose to send him there, was a political act. Which he performed with good humour.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    That is not the case for the US president, they can live where they choose. But I did not realize the archbishop was required to live in that residence as part of the terms of their service. That answers my question then.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      I don't know exactly what was "required", but I do know that the tradition of "going to where the organisation sends you" is far stronger in the clergy than it is in elected politicians.
      - pge 5y ago
        much less so in the anglican church (which doesn’t really send anyone anywhere) than in the catholic church where priests are assigned to positions
    - jayceekay 5y ago
- ragtagtag 5y ago
  "Without seeking exemption from the law" is the key phrase. He refused to respect a discriminatory law, and, by living there, was effectively daring the Apartheid government to arrest a sitting archbishop.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    - Jcowell 5y ago
      It’s civil disobedience. I’m not sure of how SA works , but in the U.S civil disobedience was regularly used to challenge laws during the 20th century. Going into white only areas and living there, forcing de segregation was one such technique.
      - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
        Civil disobedience was rife in South Africa in the late 1980s. (1) But not usually friendly, and not usually in Bishopscourt. https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/state-emergency-1985 https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/state-emergency-1985
      - throwawaylinux 5y ago
        I get there was a bit of cheek about it, just on the scale of civil disobedience in the country I didn't think "living in a big mansion in the richest neighborhood" would register much of a blip but maybe I'm wrong.
        gattilorenz 5y ago
        You can dismiss almost anything with that. "I didn't think sitting down on the bus would register much of a blip." The fact that we know about it means that it did register.
        5y ago
throwaway55421 5y ago
An inspiration. The best way to challenge insanity is to simply ignore it and move forward without consideration. You can't debate apartheid because it's farcical to begin with. The terminology even - exemption - makes our brains feel fuzzy, confused. What is this "exemption"? I'll just do my thing, thanks. We could all learn something from this.
- api 5y ago
  “You can’t reason someone out of an opinion they didn’t reason themselves into.”
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    Or in the words of Desmond Tutu: "There is nothing more difficult than waking someone who is only pretending to be asleep."
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > The best way to challenge insanity is to simply ignore it and move forward without consideration. That's a tactic to be used in specific circumstances, such as by the Archbishop in a specific, peaceful neighborhood. It's for people who are safe. For a vulnerable person, it can be very dangerous: violating norms can end in being arrested or lynched - that's what lynchings and oppression are. That is the problem. Civil rights tactics such as lunch-counter sit-ins worked because they were carefully strategized and organized, and many people still got hurt and killed. For example, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=civil+rights+birmingham+fire+hoses%2C+etc&iar=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos https://duckduckgo.com/?q=civil+rights+birmingham+fire+hoses...
fidesomnes 5y ago
archsurface 5y ago
That's a bit of a spun story. There was apartheid proper, and technically apartheid. By that time, '86, my colonial school had black students. Tutu didn't need exemption, and wasn't being particularly rebellious.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  IDK, memory and a check in Wikipedia confirms that things were still pretty bad in '86 and '87. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_in_South_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_in_South_Africa it's a litany of explosions and killings, and the turnaround may have been in the works, but it doesn't surface until December '88 when "Nelson Mandela is moved to Victor Verster Prison" (from Robben Island) I don't recall school in integration in '86 near me and yes, I would have noticed. If you had that you were lucky. I wasn't assuming that Mr Tutu was taking any great personal risk, but he was driving progress with cheerful good humour.
  - archsurface 5y ago
    I was not lucky - the following year there were fully multi-racial schools, equal numbers.
yob28 5y ago

throwawaylinux 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
1) why would a US president want to live in the White house in DC? It doesn't matter what they want, the official residence comes with the job. I do not think that Mr Tutu spent every single day of his tenure in Bishopscourt - you are right, it wasn't his scene. But he was a common sight there. 2) It was literally illegal for Mr Tutu to live there, then. Doing so anyway, with the backing of a major church, who chose to send him there, was a political act. Which he performed with good humour.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  That is not the case for the US president, they can live where they choose. But I did not realize the archbishop was required to live in that residence as part of the terms of their service. That answers my question then.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    I don't know exactly what was "required", but I do know that the tradition of "going to where the organisation sends you" is far stronger in the clergy than it is in elected politicians.
    - pge 5y ago
      much less so in the anglican church (which doesn’t really send anyone anywhere) than in the catholic church where priests are assigned to positions
  - jayceekay 5y ago
ragtagtag 5y ago
"Without seeking exemption from the law" is the key phrase. He refused to respect a discriminatory law, and, by living there, was effectively daring the Apartheid government to arrest a sitting archbishop.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    It’s civil disobedience. I’m not sure of how SA works , but in the U.S civil disobedience was regularly used to challenge laws during the 20th century. Going into white only areas and living there, forcing de segregation was one such technique.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      Civil disobedience was rife in South Africa in the late 1980s. (1) But not usually friendly, and not usually in Bishopscourt. https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/state-emergency-1985 https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/state-emergency-1985
    - throwawaylinux 5y ago
      I get there was a bit of cheek about it, just on the scale of civil disobedience in the country I didn't think "living in a big mansion in the richest neighborhood" would register much of a blip but maybe I'm wrong.
      - gattilorenz 5y ago
        You can dismiss almost anything with that. "I didn't think sitting down on the bus would register much of a blip." The fact that we know about it means that it did register.
        5y ago

throwaway55421 5y ago

An inspiration. The best way to challenge insanity is to simply ignore it and move forward without consideration. You can't debate apartheid because it's farcical to begin with. The terminology even - exemption - makes our brains feel fuzzy, confused. What is this "exemption"? I'll just do my thing, thanks. We could all learn something from this.

api 5y ago
“You can’t reason someone out of an opinion they didn’t reason themselves into.”
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  Or in the words of Desmond Tutu: "There is nothing more difficult than waking someone who is only pretending to be asleep."
wolverine876 5y ago
> The best way to challenge insanity is to simply ignore it and move forward without consideration. That's a tactic to be used in specific circumstances, such as by the Archbishop in a specific, peaceful neighborhood. It's for people who are safe. For a vulnerable person, it can be very dangerous: violating norms can end in being arrested or lynched - that's what lynchings and oppression are. That is the problem. Civil rights tactics such as lunch-counter sit-ins worked because they were carefully strategized and organized, and many people still got hurt and killed. For example, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=civil+rights+birmingham+fire+hoses%2C+etc&iar=videos&iax=videos&ia=videos https://duckduckgo.com/?q=civil+rights+birmingham+fire+hoses...

fidesomnes 5y ago

archsurface 5y ago

That's a bit of a spun story. There was apartheid proper, and technically apartheid. By that time, '86, my colonial school had black students. Tutu didn't need exemption, and wasn't being particularly rebellious.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
IDK, memory and a check in Wikipedia confirms that things were still pretty bad in '86 and '87. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_in_South_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_in_South_Africa it's a litany of explosions and killings, and the turnaround may have been in the works, but it doesn't surface until December '88 when "Nelson Mandela is moved to Victor Verster Prison" (from Robben Island) I don't recall school in integration in '86 near me and yes, I would have noticed. If you had that you were lucky. I wasn't assuming that Mr Tutu was taking any great personal risk, but he was driving progress with cheerful good humour.
- archsurface 5y ago
  I was not lucky - the following year there were fully multi-racial schools, equal numbers.

yob28 5y ago