The Literary and Debating Society of NUIG have announced that they will host Archbishop Desmond Tutu as one of their major speakers early next semester. The event, which is being planned for the third week of February next year, will likely take the format of a guest lecture followed by a questions and answers session.
Archbishop Tutu will also receive the Literary and Debating Society’s President’s Medal, the society’s achievement award, which has been won in the past by the likes of Noam Chomsky, Senator Mike Gravel, Congressman Bruce Morrison, journalist Fintan O’Toole and, playwright, Tom Murphy.
Desmond Tutu is the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, south Africa who, in 1984 won the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition campaign to the apartheid government in South Africa. He chaired the much-praised Truth and Reconciliation Committee which was set-up after the abolition of the apartheid government.
Dan Colley, Auditor of Lit & Deb, said of the possibility of Tutu’s visit; “Recipients of the President’s Medal are those who we feel have made a significant contribution to the society’s first principal, which is freedom of speech as well as made a significant contribution to wider society. Archbishop Tutu, as one of the world’s foremost human rights activists and leader who spoke out against totalitarianism, embodies the spirit of the award”
Tutu is widely regarded as “South Africa's moral conscience” and has been described by former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, as “sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu's voice will always be the voice of the voiceless”. Since his retirement, Tutu has worked to critique the new South African government. Tutu has been vocal in condemnation of corruption, the ineffectiveness of the ANC-led government to deal with poverty, and the recent outbreaks of xenophobic violence in townships across South Africa. As well as the Nobel Peace Prize, Tutu has won the Ghandi Peace Prize (2005) and the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism which he shares with Jimmy Carter.