wfn.org | Tutu speaks of truth and reconciliation at meeting

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

99-012
Tutu speaks of truth and reconciliation at meetings in Minnesota

by Susan Barksdale
(ENS) Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa was in 
Minnesota the first weekend in February to present a special award 
honoring chaplains who offered their lives to save troops in World 
War II and to speak at a special forum.

Tutu presented the first humanitarian awards given by the 
Immortal Chaplains Foundation, honoring four Army chaplains-Roman 
Catholic, Methodist, Dutch Reformed and Jewish-who gave their 
life jackets to soldiers on the troop ship Dorchester that was 
sunk in 1943. According to eyewitness accounts, the chaplains 
stood on the deck of the ship as it sank, locked in prayer.

"What we commemorate today seems to go against the grain of 
the world," Tutu said in a press conference before the awards 
ceremony. He said that true greatness comes in not being obsessed 
by it, citing Mother Teresa as an example of someone who "gave" 
her life on behalf of others. "Ultimately the world will get it, 
that the secret of greatness is that you don't strive for it."

When asked what intrigued him about the story of the 
chaplains, he said, "Basically the wonder of human beings going 
against the law of our nature" for self-preservation. "Things 
like this make you proud to be a human being. Human beings are 
wonderful-we are made for good ness and love. This is the way God 
created us," he said.

Tutu's face shone as he discussed his favorite topics of 
forgiveness and reconciliation. He warned against stereotyping 
people in our striving for peace, offering as an example the 
tendency to demonize Saddam Hussein of Iraq and with him all 
Muslims. That would be the same as demonizing all Christians 
because of the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, Tutu said, 
reminding his audience that there are extremists in all religious 
communities. 

Healing the wounds
When asked what the people of South Africa had learned in 
the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 
Tutu said, "People need the opportunity to tell their story. In 
telling the story, there is a healing that happens. Without 
forgiveness there is no future." The commission, chaired by Tutu, 
sought to heal the wounds of apartheid by inviting those who had
been involved in violence to come forward with their confessions
and to ask for forgiveness.

Addressing the difficult task of making peace in a world 
that seems to prefer violence, Tutu admitted that he has 
frequently been very angry with God. "If I were God, I would have 
sent many lightning bolts. But our God is quite extraordinary. God 
has an incredible reverence for who we are. God gives us the 
space. The omnipotent God becomes impotent, weak. God then waits 
for us, for those who get passionate about goodness, love and 
peace."

The first Immortal Chaplains Prizes for Humanity were 
presented posthumously to Charles W. David, Jr., an African-
American mess attendant on the troop ship Dorchester who risked 
his life to pull survivors from the sea during rescue operations, 
and to Amy Biehl, the young American Fulbright scholar who was 
stoned to death in South Africa in 1993 while working to heal the 
wounds of apartheid.

In a carefully guarded surprise, Tutu himself was the recipient of
a third prize.

The difficult work of reconciliation
Tutu spoke to a packed audience of about 1500 at the Town 
Hall Forum at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown 
Minneapolis, describing the difficult work of the Truth and 
Reconciliation Commission.

"We were in a pickle in South Africa," Tutu began. While 
many were predicting that the nation was on the verge of civil war 
as blacks assumed majority control, Tutu said, "It didn't happen. 
We won. We wouldn't have made it without you. We won because
you supported us and you prayed for us. Our victory is your victory."

The Town Hall audience, and those listening on National 
Public Radio, heard stories of the brutal atrocities of apartheid, 
illustrating "the extent of the evil." South Africa could have 
descended into the violence that plagues so many parts of the 
world, Tutu admitted, but chose "to walk in a more costly path-
the path of forgiveness, the path of reconciliation."

Tutu said that God has been "very good to us. He has given 
us a Nelson Mandela. Everyone expected Mandela to come out after 
his 27 years in prison bristling with resentment and anger and 
bitterness-and a lust for revenge. But he did not," Tutu said. 
"Instead he invited his white jailer to attend his inauguration 
as a guest. He later took his white prosecutor, who had asked for 
the death sentence, to lunch. No, he did not seek revenge but took 
the way of forgiveness and reconciliation and healing."

Capacity for good and evil
The archbishop pointed out that human beings "have an incredible
capacity for evil. When we hear of these perpetrators, we think,
There but for the grace of God, go you and I." Yet they are "ordinary
human beings," he added. "They may commit the most horrendous
deeds, but that does not turn them into monsters. They still remain
children of God."

The whole process of reconciliation is based on the belief that we have
a capacity to change, that we are capable of good, Tutu argued. "We can
achieve the most ghastly things and we can be some of the most 
compassionate and caring and loving people the world has ever known.
Forgiveness is not cheap, reconciliation is not easy."

During the hearings of the TRC, Tutu said that members heard 
gruesome stories of death and torture-and yet he listened in 
wonder and amazement, "bowled over at the goodness of people."  
He added, "On many occasions we felt that the right response to 
what was happening in front of us was to take off our shoes, because we 
were on holy ground. We needed to open the wounds, to cleanse them 
so that they wouldn't fester, to pour balm on them."

With a chuckle of amazement at God's abundant mercy, Tutu 
asked, "Why did God choose South Africa? We are not virtuous, we 
are not even smart. It's because God has a sense of humor" in 
choosing such an unlikely lot. "We are going to succeed not 
because we deserve to succeed. We are going to succeed for the 
sake of God's grace."

Tutu, who is currently a visiting professor at Emory University
in Atlanta, also joined the congregation at St. Mark's Cathedral in
Minneapolis for services honoring Absalom Jones, the first African-
American ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

--Susan Barksdale edits Soundings, the newspaper of the Diocese of 
Minnesota.

http://ecusa.anglican.org/ens