Status
Call number
Genres
Collection
Pages
Publication
Description
The establishment of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a pioneering international event. Never before had a country sought to move forward from despotism to democracy by completely exposing the atrocities committed in the past and achieving reconciliation with its former oppressors. At the center of this unprecedented attempt at healing a nation has been Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom President Nelson Mandela named as Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With the final report of the commission having now been published, Archbishop Tutu offers his reflections on the profound wisdom he has gained by helping usher South Africa through this painful experience. In No future without forgiveness, Tutu argues that true reconciliation does not come easily nor by merely denying the past. More than repeating platitudes and trite theories about forgiveness, he puts forward a bold spirituality that recognizes the horrors people can inflict upon one another and yet retains a sense of idealism and realism about reconciliation. With a clarity of pitch born out of decades of experience, Tutu shows readers how to move forward with honesty and compassion to build a newer and more humane world.… (more)
User reviews
1. The sense of fear that hard-line elements within the white security forces would refuse to accept the negotiated agreement and might launch military action which would be disastrous for everybody. This fear largely accounts for
2. His treatment of restorative and retributive justice. The latter, which dominates western cultures, is punitive and
individualistic. The former is far more common in Africa (Tutu links it to ubuntu) and involves restoring harmony to the community and seeking the greatest good for all in the community. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission may have been the pragmatic result of the fear of military action by hard line whites, but its spirit was that of restorative justice.
3. Tutu almost seems more sympathetic towards the torturers and murderers who stood up and admitted, "I did it!" than to the huge number of whites who benefited from the apartheid regime but, when it fell, rushed to claim they never supported it and didn't know how bad it was. It is a lesson in collusion which is repeated again and again
where people benefit from the abhorrent or illegal actions of governments which claim to act in their name.