You're too too kind

"And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes." Luke 16.9


In his long and courageous fight against apartheid, Desmond Tutu relied more than once on his international status as a rabble rousing Churchman. Political leaders - for example Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan - were not always amused.

"Your president is the pits as far as blacks are concerned," he once told an American journalist, "He sits there like the great big white chief who can tell us black people that we don't know what is good for us." Mrs Thatcher also came in for a drubbing. She is said to have found him rude and unpleasant. In turn, he considered her reluctance to support sanctions against South Africa deeply compromising: "support of this racist policy is racist."

Where has this critical energy gone now? There was none of it in evidence at Guildhall, when Desmond Tutu spoke as the guest of the City of London at an event on June 11 to mark the launch of his charity the Tutu Foundation. It was a love-in between this pin-up prophet of international Anglicanism and the champion of profits deriving from international capitalism, the City of London Corporation.

"You are not peculiar in having these problems [marginalised communities living in cities where there is such a wide disparity between the wealthy and the poor] but you are peculiar in wanting to do something about it." He then got us all to congratulate ourselves, with a round of applause. He added that the British are not great about feeling good about themselves. He was surely being disingenuous. That's all the City of London Corporation every feels about itself.

It was depressing to hear him speak so uncritically of the contemporary structures of systemic exploitation; the money marketeers and credit crunchers. He said nothing about the contemporary distortions brought about by the fetishism of the financial services. Instead we had a sweet hymn of praise to the philanthropist who gave £40K from his £400K bonus to a local church and words of encouragement to remember that when the sky is darkening and we feel a bit "gloomy", the sun is still shining above the clouds.

And then when he had finished, and we broke into applause again and just before heading happily for the canapes, he mentioned, almost in passing, that we might like to consider giving generously to his new Foundation. Maybe he is just canny.