Desmond Tutu
an Arch for Forgiveness By Malcolm McKenzie
A
rchbishop Desmond Tutu, a model of and for forgiveness, passed away on 26 December 2021. Like many South Africans, and many others around the world, I am still mourning this huge loss. Tutu was a gracious, generous, spirited, just, and forgiving human being and change-maker, the likes of whom we do not see nearly frequently enough. If there were more such people, our world would be a much better place. In this piece I share words I wrote originally in December 2020, as my tribute to a man who has been a guide and beacon for me and who is now gone. I hope that a few comments about and insights into this truly remarkable person might inspire all of us. My words of that time are as follows. ‘One of the most celebrated, and compassionate, of contemporary South Africans is Desmond Tutu. After Nelson Mandela, Desmond may be the best known of my compatriots. He is a truly remarkable man. Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, almost 10 years before the same award was given to Mandela. Soon after this, in 1986, he became the Archbishop of Cape Town. The Nobel Peace Prize Motivation (or citation) for Tutu praised him ‘for his role as a unifying leader figure in the non-violent campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa’. In his insistence on nonviolence, Tutu was an intentional heir to Mahatma Gandhi and his practice of satyagraha. Gandhi had developed this philosophy of non-violent protest when he lived in South Africa in the last few years of the 19th century and the first few of the 20th, before returning to India.
44 | International School | Spring 2022
Desmond Tutu was the Chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This bold and successful experiment in restorative justice was set up soon after the open elections in 1994 had brought apartheid and legalized racial discrimination to an end. The Commission toured the country over a period of years, holding hearings in cities and towns large and small. Victims of racially motivated and state sanctioned violence were encouraged to come and tell their stories, in public. Sometimes the perpetrators of the violence made public confessions. The purpose of the TRC was to encourage openness, recognition, forgiveness, and healing – healing that was individual, communal, and national. It was a hard, grueling, but also exalting experience. The TRC was given the power to grant amnesty, which it did, at times controversially. Of course, and sadly, almost all the victims of this violence were black – but not every one. Amy Biehl was a Stanford University activist student who came to Cape Town on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1992. Amy wanted to help in the final days of the dying of apartheid. Here is Desmond writing about Amy Biehl: On August 25, 1993, she was driving into the Gugulethu township when her car was stopped by an angry mob. The group had just emerged from a political meeting to protest the police slaying of a young black boy. Amy’s passion for justice and her purpose for being in South Africa were not written on her face. To the protesters, Amy was just another person, another symbol of apartheid oppression. They dragged her from the vehicle and beat, stoned, and stabbed her to death. Amy was twenty-six years old.
