Picking Tutu's Brain

Why have I heard so many people compare Iraq to Vietnam and few compare it to South Africa? The second would be so much more productive.

CAROLE MACNEIL: [...]The idea that, and perhaps I was faulty in this premise, but I came to this interview and I was thinking where could I find a relationship between what the people of Iraq might be going through and what the people of South Africa went through, and reading your book and thinking about what’s going on in Iraq, I really felt after seeing the freelance justice that’s going on in the streets now between tribes and between religious parties, the looting, the chaos that’s going on in the streets. And recognizing that there’s some 400 000 soldiers there who will have to live in Iraq afterwards as citizens side by side with the people who they may have beat up or oppressed in some way, if you could tell me why truth and reconciliation is a much better way for a society to go in that kind of chaos then leaving it to a court or leaving it to the state?

DESMOND TUTU: It does seem to me that it’s going to be a general sense of resentment felt by many Iraqis, even those who were opposed to Saddam Hussein and those who are saying we’re glad he’s gone. I think that what happened yesterday may be an indication of that sense of resentment that the so-called liberators are doing this to us. But if we could move all of that and say what would be the best way forward after oppression and conflict. Then without being presumptuous and suggesting that the South African way is the way, you would have to say that that seem to be a far more viable way then either retribution or looking for scapegoats. As you see many who may have supported Saddam Hussein are going to continue living in that country and you’re going to have to find a way of accommodating them. And which justice system do you have that can in fact operate efficiently to deal with all the possible perpetrators and you say that we don’t want to encourage impunity either, but we need to find a way by which people come to terms with the horrors that they experienced. In such a way though that it leaves the possibility of being able to live together real and it seems that something akin to the process that we had in South Africa provides a more likely viable way for a future for Iraq than any other alternative.

CAROLE MACNEIL: It’s a path to forgiveness?

DESMOND TUTU: Yes. Forgiveness as it were the means to that particular end. You see now perhaps that it has already happened people are forgetting just how likely it seemed in South Africa. When you think of people having been oppressed for at least 3 centuries being the majority in a country and treated as if they were a minority. Seeing a small minority enjoy enormous privileges and virtually everyone who is anyone looking at what they thought were the prospects for South Africa said we don’t see any other way through except by means of a bloodbath, by means of the most horrendous explosion that was the expectation. And so when we look at a situation like Iraq and you say no, that is totally impossible but that’s exactly what they said about South Africa and I think that’s why God made it happen in South Africa is precisely to set up I think this likely, unlikely lot as an example…

CAROLE MACNEIL: Apartheid?

DESMOND TUTU: I mean all of us, that particular situation, because people said that this is… this is a situation that we can’t see being re solved except through a catastrophe, there’s no way out. And there was a way, which is to say to similar situations in other parts of the world it is possible. Of course we were fortunate, we were fortunate that we had this extraordinary example of Nelson Mandella who could speaking with the credibility that came from having suffered as much as he did, say we are not going as a way of retribution and revenge. We are going to go the magnanimous route of forgiveness and reconciliation. Now you’d have to find people of similar stature, calibre in that situation who can in fact be able to speak in a way that would make most of the people say we’ve got to sit up and take notice.

CAROLE MACNEIL: Someone who has suffered?

DESMOND TUTU: Someone who has suffered. Situations throw up all kinds of people and someone will emerge that is recognized by the people as having the kind of credibility to make that kind of suggestion.

CAROLE MACNEIL: How can people possibly forgive when someone that you cared for has been murdered , tortured? When you’ve lived without liberty, or when you’ve been judged to be less then you are because of the colour of your skin or your gender?

DESMOND TUTU: They have, they have. How they do it? By doing it!

CAROLE MACNEIL: That’s the point, I’ve lived my whole Catholic life (inaudible) turn the other cheek, forgive and forget, but nobody ever say how? I’ve also herd this, to err is human and to forgive divine. Is forgiveness something we can do as human beings or a gift from God?

DESMOND TUTU: Well it is a gift like everything good we do. It is a grace, it isn’t anything about which we can ultimately boast. We didn’t say forgive and forget, not forget, no no no. That would be disastrous, remember not in order to reap revenge. Remember in order for it not to happen ever again. Remember where you come from, and that’s very biblical you know. God says to the children of Israel, remember you were slaves therefore treat others with compassion, don’t take up everything when you have a harvest. Why? Leave it for the poor says God, leave it for the alien, leave it for the struggler. Why? Because you were an alien, memory is crucial. Memory is crucial, our people, we were quite determined; we’ve got to remember. We’ve got to remember were we come from, we’ve got to remember the oppression, remember that.

CAROLE MACNEIL: But how do we keep from burning when we remember?

DESMOND TUTU: Remember, remember how you felt when that was done to you so you don’t repeat it. People are fundamentally good, people are fundamentally good, we were exposed to some of the most horrendous atrocities that human beings can commit. Saying that each one of us, you and I have the capacity for some of the most awful evil. And it is only by the grace of God that you and I those perpetrators, because those perpetrators are ordinary human beings like you and me, but we also had this extraordinary revelation, exhilarating really, that human beings have this extraordinary capacity for good. And that is what we must ultimately hold before the world.

Full interview