Sisipho Sweyiya & Wendell Roelf

CAPE TOWN (Reuters). South Africans remember Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s bravery in saving a young man who was being attacked by gang members as one their proudest moments.

The country entered a state emergency in 1985 when banned liberation groups, such as the African National Congress now in power, tried to increase political pressure on the government and bring down white-minority rule.

Archived footage from a July funeral on Johannesburg’s outskirts shows Tutu clearly seen in purple clerical clothes, pushing back against angry young mourners, who beat and kicked a defenceless male lying down on the dirty ground.

The man, who is accused of being apartheid collaborators, is doused in petrol. He is just moments from being “necklaced”, which is a term that refers to having a tire placed around the neck and then doused with flammable liquid before being set ablaze. Tutu’s intervention and the help of other clergy saved him.

To see it and see him go in. It had so many striking things,” Nontombi said to Reuters from outside his Cape Town family home.

One was his courage to say no in front of the group. The other was that the young people were open to hearing him. She said that there was still respect for Daddy, the clergy and other members of the congregation.

Tutu used his pulpit to protest the oppressive white-minority South African regime. This ended in 1990s. Tutu also regularly addressed the funerals of the young activists murdered by the security apparatus.

Nontombi (61), a reverend, is a remarkable resemblance her father. She fondly remembers family trips from Alice, Eastern Cape, to Swaziland, where her siblings and she attended school.

“He was a good father. The one thing I have to say, as much as Ma was the disciplinarian, it was when Daddy would say something like: ‘I am so disappointed’. This hit and was very hard. That was exactly what we didn’t want, to disappoint Daddy. It took so many to disappoint him.” Nontombi added.