Beyers Naude, the Afrikaner theologian who turned his back on his church's belief that apartheid in South Africa was justified to become one of the system's most outspoken critics, has died at the age of 89.
Naude died in the early morning hours yesterday at a retirement village in Johannesburg just days after he was released from hospital in a frail condition having suffered an infection, his family said.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela yesterday hailed Naude as a brave man who had stood up against apartheid at a time when it was unpopular for white people to do so.
Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naude spent 20 years preaching in the Dutch Reformed Church that strongly enforced the philosophy of racial segregation. The plight of black people under apartheid and the escalation of state sanctioned violence in black residential townships like Sharpeville in the early 1960s, however, forced Naude to reconsider his beliefs.
During a sermon in September 1963, he denounced apartheid and condemned his church for providing the theological justification for the policy.
"I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to retain my integrity as a human being and as a Christian, I had to stick clearly, unequivocally and fearlessly in whom I believed in, what I believed in and why I believed," he later explained. Naude was immediately ostracized from the Afrikaner community and labeled a traitor.
In 1972 he gave a sermon at Westminister Abbey in London, traveled through Europe and the US and began speaking out in earnest against the system of racial segregation that even prohibited blacks and whites from attending church together.
In 1977 authorities banned the theologian, restricting his movements and activities.
Naude later became the head of the South African Council of Churches and forged strong friendships with banned African liberation movement leaders.
After the fall of apartheid in 1994, Naude was reinstated as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, and in Johannesburg a busy freeway and an inner city square were named after him.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of