Archbishop Desmond Tutu's touching tale
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked to speak on the importance of inclusion in the London 2012 legacy I suspect the organisers did not expect quite so much God - and sex.
But the 78-year- old veteran anti-apartheid campaigner provided - somewhat indirectly - the best of rebuffs to those who berate the diversity/inclusion agenda.
He told, touchingly, how when he arrived in Britain in the Sixties to study theology, he and his wife were astonished to discover that the British bobby would call them “sir” and “ma’am” if asked for directions. “It was such an extraordinary experience coming out of South Africa where they called us non-this, non-the-other. Frequently we would accost police officers asking for directions even when we knew where we were going just to savour this ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’,” he told a lecture at the RSA presented with the 2012 Games organisers, Locog.
It made those of us there quite proud, but less so when he emphasised how often people in wheelchairs are ignored while speakers address the people pushing them. We may have a better track record than South Africa on issues of race; we still have a long way to go on embracing equality in all its forms, he seemed to suggest.
The archbishop had a busy day yesterday, starting at the Olympic park where he met young people. He also spoke to 500 staff members at Locog about the importance of inclusion.
It’s exactly the kind of stuff that gets the anti-political-correctness lobby in a tizz. I wish they had all been there to hear Tutu last night. He made it very, very real.


