Archbishop Desmond Tutu
On December 26, Archbishop Desmond Tutu died at the age of 90. He is known worldwide as one of the great leaders of faith based action for racial justice. He was a main leader of the movement to end apartheid, the oppressive system of racial injustice in South Africa. After apartheid ended, he led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that enabled victims of apartheid to tell their stories of the pain and brutality caused by that system. It also enabled those who participated in that system to confess their deeds of oppression and seek amnesty based on taking responsibility for their actions. The work of the TRC played a major role in helping South Africa to move forward as a multiracial democracy.
As our nation commemorates the one year anniversary of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, we are at a crucial point in our own struggle to be a multiracial democracy in the 21st century. In his 1999 book No Future Without Forgiveness, Bishop Tutu wrote about the painful but necessary work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I want to share two quotes from his book that seem especially prophetic and important for our time. As part of his statement at the opening session of the TRC, Bishop Tutu said:
We are charged to unearth the truth about our dark past; to lay the ghosts of that past so that they will not return to haunt us. And that we will thereby contribute to the healing of a traumatized and wounded people – and in this manner to promote national unity and reconciliation.
Near the end of his book, Bishop Tutu reflected on how his experience with the TRC could inform the journey toward racial justice and reconciliation in the United States of America:
If we are going to move on and build a new kind of world community there must be a way in which we can deal with a sordid past…It may be, for instance, that race relations in the United States will not improve significantly until Native Americans and African Americans get the opportunity to tell their stories and reveal the pain that sits in the pit of their stomachs as a baneful legacy of dispossession and slavery. We saw in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission how the act of telling one’s story has a cathartic, healing effect…True forgiveness deals with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible.
Our national government has yet to establish our own version of the TRC. In the absence government action, I believe that communities of faith can lead the way in this area. As people of faith who believe that transformation that comes through confession, forgiveness, repair, and reconciliation; we are called to seek justice by facing the past and present sin of racism so that a future of justice for all and true reconciliation is possible. I am grateful to God for the life of Desmond Tutu whose life and ministry showed the way forward for his nation and ours. I pray that we will hear and act on his message to America. The video posted below summarizes the life and legacy of Bishop Tutu in greater detail than the contents of this post.