7 minute read
Training in Mission Twenty-five years On
By Hadje Cresencio Sadje, SOAS University of London
Hadje Cresencio Sadje is an associate member of the SOAS Center for Palestine Studies, University of London, UK. Mr. Sadje obtained his MA in Crosscultural Theology at the Protestant Theological University, The Netherlands, and MA in Ecumenical Studies (specializing in Sociology of Religion) at the University of Bonn. He is a visiting Ph.D. research fellow at the University of Vienna, Austria, a student ambassador at the Paris Institute of Critical Thinking, and a visiting lecturer at the Divinity School Silliman University Philippines. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Hamburg Germany and teaches at Barcelona Applied Social Sciences Spain and the Foundation Academy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Mr. Sadje’s research interests include pentecostalism, decoloniality, sociology of religion, and political/public theologies.
This last year 2021, I have seen the world with great sadness on the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Archbishop Tutu is one of the great religious activists who devoted his entire life to dismantling the South African apartheid system. Many people believe that Archbishop Tutu’s public ministry is a moral compass, above all, a testament to the importance of convergence between the religious institution and the protest movement against white supremacy and settler colonialism in South Africa. They have admired Archbishop Tutu’s resolute and uncompromising commitment to non-violent protests and reconciliation as the way to eradicate the South African apartheid system (Battle, 2021; Tutu, 2000). As a global religious icon, his ideas and pastoral works are an ongoing source of guidance and inspiration to the young generation.
If many people venerated Archbishop Tutu, some people had made serious criticisms, for instance, on his Nobel Peace Prize award and his method of non-violence struggle (Lester and Osborne, 2021). For them, Archbishop Tutu’s political and social vision did not work out so well, particularly his South African post-apartheid paradigm of forgiveness and reconciliation. For example, many South Africans viewed Archbishop Tutu’s post-apartheid paradigm of the ‘Truth and President Barack Obama greets Archbishop Desmond Tutu as he arrives at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation Reconciliation Commission’ as a massive failure because Youth Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, June 30, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) survival perpetrators of the South Africa apartheid system had never been faced the court of justice in the immediate post-apartheid period. Aside from this, accordingly, Archbishop Tutu’s political ideas and actions based on the post-apartheid paradigm of the Truth and Reconciliation alienated the progressive South African groups. Despite these troubling legacies, many people are convinced that Archbishop Tutu’s ideas and accomplishments to challenge and dismantle white settler colonialism remain politically and socially important (Lester and Osborne, 2021).
But what are my personal takeaways from the death of Archbishop Tutu? First of all, to a great degree, I have observed the bandwagon effect in the death of Archbishop Tutu. The bandwagon effect, according to social psychologists, refers to people’s behaviour, attitude, and opinions simply because everyone else is doing it or due to its popularity (Kastanakis and Balabanis, 2012). As usual, this bandwagon effect is evident in the passing of Archbishop Tutu, most especially, among the highest world leaders (Ojelu, 2021). Social media shows that condolences pour in from the highest world leaders, and even, pay homage and described Archbishop Tutu as ‘one of the great leaders’. For me, I find that as a smack of hypocrisy. Perhaps, this might sound like an utterly inappropriate statement to many people. However, the reason why I called them ‘hypocritical’ is because one of the legacies of Archbishop Tutu is challenging traditional power structures that continue to produce various injustices across the world and are neglected by these world leaders, especially by Western powers (Bramble, 2021).
Aside from the bandwagon effect, I have noticed that these Western political leaders ignore and never supported Archbishop Tutu’s condemnation of human rights violations of the Zionist State of Israel against Palestinian people. Archbishop Tutu is one of the outspoken critics of the Zionist State of Israel apartheid system, the Zionist Jewish supremacist ideology, and its brutal colonialist project in the Palestinian territory (Aharoni 2021). In fact, his popular and widely quoted statement, ‘When I see Palestinians at a checkpoint, it reminds me of South Africans at checkpoints during apartheid,’ garnered international attention to atrocities of the Zionist State of Israel against Palestinian people (Polya 2022).
Therefore, according to Chris McGreal, Archbishop Tutu’s anti-apartheid against the Zionist State of Israel could not be ignored (The Guardian 2021). Despite being harassed, according to McGreal, Archbishop Tutu refused to apologise, back down, and continue to denounce the Zionist State of Israel’s apartheid system (The Guardian 2021). In 2007, for example, UN appointed Archbishop Tutu as one of the members of the High-Level Fact Finding Mission to Beit Hanoun. After he managed to meet the victims of the Israeli attack on the Beit Hanoun district of the Gaza Strip, Archbishop Tutu submitted a report for the Human Rights Council (UN 2008). According to him, “I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces”, he wrote. “Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government (2008).” Despite the fact, these leaders who recognised, praised, and venerated Archbishop Tutu’s human rights advocacy failed to condemn the Zionist State of Israel’s colonial project of the Palestinian territory. Lastly, I have observed the depoliticisation of the public ministry of Archbishop Tutu. Like many other religious activists, I have observed that the prophetic ministry of Archbishop Tutu has the tendency to be reduced to a pious abstraction/individual model. For instance, some social media depicted Archbishop Tutu as a saint, however, they failed to give emphasis on his commitment to political-social emancipation, especially his stand against racism and injustices.
As a final remark, I have borrowed the title of this essay from a Filipino historian Renato Constantino. Constantino used this phrase to question and critique Rizal as a national hero of the Philippines. For Constantino, to consider Rizal as a national hero is a mistake because he opposed the revolutionary movement during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines (Quibuyen, 1997). In that context, Constantino used the phrase ‘veneration without understanding’ to describe how many people easily venerated the person, even without a hint and understanding the person. Sadly, most of the time, many people seem to ‘go with the flow’ and they don’t bother at all. We are convinced that the person deserves to be venerated and admired, however, we are not at all sure why we pay homage to someone or something we venerate and admire, or to a person in authority. As a Christ follower, I believe such social behaviour not only offends the faith and good conscience, more importantly, it insults the intelligence. As we continue to pay homage, cherish and celebrate the legacies of Archbishop Tutu, allow me to offer you his prayer of blessing:
Desmond M. Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa gestures during the session 'Believing in the Dignity of All' at the Annual Meeting 2009 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, February 1, 2009. Copyright by World Economic Forum, swiss-image.ch/Photo by Remy Steinegger
“Dear Child of God, you are loved with a love that nothing can shake, a love that loved you long before you were created, a love that will be there long after everything has disappeared. You are precious, with a preciousness that is totally quite immeasurable. And God wants you to be like God. Filled with life and goodness and laughter—and joy. “God, who is forever pouring out God’s whole being from all eternity, wants you to flourish. God wants you to be filled with joy and excitement and ever longing to be able to find what is so beautiful in God’s creation: the compassion of so many, the caring, the sharing. And God says, Please, my child, help me. Help me to spread love and laughter and joy and compassion. And you know what, my child? As you do this—hey, presto— you discover joy. Joy, which you had not sought, comes as the gift, as almost the reward for this non-self-regarding caring for others (Abrams, 2016).”
