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Anti-apartheid campaigner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wins $1.7 million Templeton Prize
Last year’s Templeton Prize went to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader.
The foundation, whose first award went to Mother Teresa in 1973, praised Tutu as a moral voice for people around the world”.
“Desmond Tutu calls upon all of us to recognize that each and every human being is unique in all of history and, in doing so, to embrace our own vast potential to be agents for spiritual progress and positive change,” it said. “Not only does he teach this idea, he lives it.”
Born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal in 1931, Tutu was ordained in 1960 just as the minority white government began resettling black Africans and Asians from areas designated as “whites only”.
His position in the church gave him a prominent platform from which to criticize the system. Angry with his activism, the government revoked his passport, prompting a global outcry.
With pressure on South Africa growing, talks between politicians and the African National Congress led to the release in 1990 of Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of apartheid laws.
After elections, President Mandela appointed Tutu as chairman of a commission examining the human rights abuses of the apartheid years. After his retirement Tutu continued to work as a global campaigner for democracy and human rights.
