Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa
Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa
There are few people in the world who do not know the face of
Desmond Tutu. When Nelson Mandela appointed him to chair the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, he became the public face of an extraordinary process that few people could have even dreamed of or imagined during the long hard years of battling the brutal
Apartheid regime.
The road to reconciliation was not easy.
The lack of racial harmony in the country between 1960 and 1994 prompted the first democratically elected government of Nelson Mandela to institute, in 1995, a commission of inquiry based in Cape Town (known as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission or TRC) into all apartheid-related crimes with the objective of mending hitherto unbridgeable racial disparities. Thus, when South Africa emerged from the nightmare of apartheid, the country launched a new struggle to deal with a history of pervasive human rights violations while at the same time working to unite and rebuild the nation.
Some Black people wanted harsh penalties for the perpetrators of apartheid crimes. Others thought that investigation of past wrongs would jeopardise the fragile new democracy, while others simply wanted to forget the past. In the end, the new government opted to establish a commission to document what happened during South Africa's most troubled times, and offer limited amnesty to those who confessed their complicity. The TRC was based on the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No 34 of 1995. It resembled a legal body that was bestowed with the authority to hear and try cases, resolve disputes, or make certain legal decisions. The policy of reconciliation embodied in the inquiry was predicated on the fundamental principle that "To forgive is not just to be altruistic, [but] it is the best form of self-interest."
Desmond Tutu and the TRC
A year after the attainment of majority rule, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was appointed chairman of the TRC. Its jurisdiction included providing support and reparation to victims and their families, and compiling a full and objective record of the effects of apartheid on South African society. Anybody who was a victim of violence was welcome to give his or her testimony before this newly constituted body. Perpetrators of violence could also give evidence and request amnesty from prosecution.
The Government envisioned the TRC as a mechanism that would help deal with the evils of apartheid. In the words of the former Minister of Justice, Dullah Omar, the commission was "... a necessary exercise to enable South Africans to come to terms with their past on a morally accepted basis and to advance the cause of reconciliation." The application of the system of apartheid had led to the escalation of conflict in the country which resulted in violence and human rights abuses. No section of society escaped these abuses, but, to the South African government's credit, it was recognised that "to err is human but to forgive is divine."
For the past three weeks, I have been writing about national apologies, and attempts at reconciliation in countries where a minority has been harmed, historically, and where they are still suffering the depredations of systemic inequities and racism.
We stand at a cross-roads here in the United States. We are moving into a future, where one day very soon, those people we now classify as "minorities" (a word I don't like) will become the majority population. South Africa is an example of the majority working on healing its grief, pain and suffering and learning to co-exist with those who had been the ruling minority. No process is perfect, and South Africa still has its problems, but for me, South Africa has been a powerful example of human potential for good, even in the midst of so much ugliness that we see around us.
I would like to think that my brothers and sisters of color here in the U.S.—black, brown, red or yellow—will one day show the same spirit of forgiveness and redemption.
I hold out hope that we will not have to wait till then, and that the process could begin sooner. That, frankly, will be the decision of what is still a white majority here. A white majority that is deeply divided—between those who look towards the future, and those who want to cling to the racial divides and privileges of the past.
Follow me below the fold to explore this.
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