No Future Without Forgiveness

“[W]e South Africans will survive and prevail only together, black and white bound together by circumstance and history as we strive to claw our way out of the morass that was apartheid racism.” 

Tutu repeatedly emphasizes that unity is the key for South Africa to succeed. If one group tries to dominate the other, the country will fall into violence and despair. It can no longer be their country or my country; it must be our country.

“We could very well have had justice, retributive justice, and had a South Africa lying in ashes—a truly Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one.” 

If Black South Africans had punished all those responsible for the crimes under apartheid, violence most certainly would have resulted. Given their much greater numbers, Black South Africans could have done just that. However, Tutu argues that no one would win in that scenario, as the country would be in ruins.

“To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me.” 

Tutu stresses the damage that holding onto anger and hatred inflicts and, conversely, the liberating effect of letting go of it and reaching a state of peace. Forgiveness is the only way forward, the only way to break the cycle of violence.

“The true leader must at some point or other convince her or his followers that she or he is in this whole business not for self-aggrandizement but for the sake of others. Nothing is able to prove this quite so convincingly as suffering.”

Tutu explains that Mandela, who served 27 years in prison and suffered immensely under apartheid, had instant authority with South Africans. It enabled him to convince those who suffered under apartheid to reconcile with the white minority and not exact revenge. He set the example.

“We contend that there is another form of justice, restorative justice, which was characteristic of traditional African jurisprudence. Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment.” 

The TRC seeks restorative justice for post-apartheid South Africa to restore or rebuild the community into a whole. Restorative justice heals emotional wounds, mends broken relationships, and enables a new beginning. A punitive form of justice, on the other hand, would trap the country in a cycle of violence.

“The law, and our recommendations to President Mandela, made for provision for those who were designated victims under the act to be eligible for reparation. The commissioners deliberately tried to avoid using the word ‘compensation.’” 

Tutu explains that compensating someone for the loss of a loved one is impossible. South Africa lacked the resources to supply the many victims with a reasonable amount of money anyway. However, the reparations were an important symbolic gesture to acknowledge the violation of rights.

“Although we were asked to deal with a period of thirty-four years, from 1960 to 1994, we were really talking about what had been happening in our beautiful land since 1652.” 

While practical concerns limited the TRC’s authority, the victimization of native people in South Africa began when the first Dutch settler arrived in 1652. Here, Tutu gives voice to the enormity of the hurt that the TRC was trying to heal. Racist regimes had held power for centuries, and all must take part in the effort to overcome that legacy.

“So we were broadly representative, though we were criticized from day one by some of the Afrikaans media and political leadership as a flawed commission, packed with those who were dismissively described as ‘struggle’ types [...].” 

Criticisms of the TRC appeared in the white community’s media—printed in the Dutch-derived language Afrikaans—and through statements by white political leaders and revealed the white community’s significant resistance to change. These critics wanted the number of TRC members who supported apartheid to equal the number who opposed it. This demand exposed their unwillingness to admit the wrong of apartheid itself, to acknowledge its crimes against humanity. The TRC gave representation to all racial, ethnic, and religious groups and to women. However, despite its efforts, the TRC’s leadership did not always succeed in retaining white commissioners. For example, one Afrikaner commissioner, among the 17 commissioners whom Mandela assigned, resigned long before the TRC completed its work.

“As I grow older I am pleasantly surprised at how relevant theology has become in my perception.” 

Tutu’s deep faith in Christianity enabled him to distinguish between horrific acts of depravity, which victims described to the TRC, and the human sinner. His theology compelled him not to give up on any individual because all humans are sacred. Recognizing that every human has the capacity for evil, he opened his heart to forgive. The TRC’s approach of granting amnesty to perpetrators who gave truthful confessions was entirely consistent with his theology.

“We were involved in the struggle because we were being religious, not political. It was because we were obeying the imperatives of our faith.” 

For Tutu, the struggle against apartheid was moral. That system violated the Bible, which declares that every human is created in God’s image and is of intrinsic value. He found it inexplicable that the white Dutch Reformed Church could justify abominable treatment of humans given their acceptance of the Bible. This hypocrisy motivated his and others’ resistance.

“It was not usually the big things, the awful atrocities, that got at you. No, it was the daily pinpricks, the little discourtesies, the minute humiliations, having one’s dignity trodden underfoot, not always with jackboots—though that happened too.” 

Describing life under apartheid for Black South Africans, Tutu explains how the daily insults to dignity wore people down. As an example, the book recalls how a young store clerk called Tutu’s father, an educated man who led a school, “boy.” Young Tutu, who witnessed the incident, felt humiliation for his father, who could not call this insult out.

“[T]he primary cancer may be, and was, and will always be, the apartheid oppression, but secondary infections have touched many of apartheid’s opponents and eroded their knowledge of good and evil.” 

Quoting Bishop Storey, who tried to win the release of abducted boys from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s home, Tutu emphasizes the moral damage that apartheid caused. Her chief bodyguard murdered one of the boys, Stompie Seipei, whom the resistance saw as an askari (or traitor). When apartheid’s opponents copied the violent tactics of their oppressors, they became their own enemy. This is part of the reason that Tutu urges people to take the path of forgiveness, not one of retribution in which they emulate their former oppressors’ behavior.

“Mercifully, it was the last time that I cried in public during the lifetime of the commission.” 

Referring to the only time that he broke down during a victim’s testimony, Tutu gives insight into the toll of TRC membership. Hearing the accounts of atrocities such as torture and murder would naturally move any human to tears. However, holding such emotions in check helped ensure that the public’s focus remained on the victims and not the TRC members.

“Perhaps it would be better to say that there are so-called ordinary people in each nation and land who are capable of some extraordinary accomplishments.” 

Tutu does not believe that anyone is ordinary but that each human is a sacred creation of God and is therefore special. People everywhere show the capacity to forgive, a nobility of spirit. These people provide hope that enemies can make peace with one another—and that perpetrators of evil can recover their humanity.

“The onus is on each single South African to realize that this is not a project to which anyone can be indifferent, but a long-term and enduring process [...].” 

The TRC’s mission to promote national unity and reconciliation was essential to South Africa’s survival. The TRC could not alone bring national unity but could help the country start toward that goal. Every citizen had a stake in national unity and therefore an obligation to contribute to the process.

“The police could not solve these mysteries because they themselves were the culprits who sought to hoodwink the public by engaging in charades. The crimes were not aberrations, the work of so-called ‘bad apples,’ as defenders of the apartheid government later called them.” 

During the apartheid years, the government systematically undermined the rule of law and engaged in criminality. It planned and orchestrated bombings, torture, murders, and the disposal of bodies. Often, the government blamed Black South Africans for its own criminal deeds or left the cases unsolved.

“[…] Afrikaners imagined that they had only two options in South Africa’s political, social, and community life—either to be top dog, domineering, or to be underdog, subservient, the doormat of others.” 

This mentality presumed division, with one group dominating and using another. Instead, Tutu wished for a third option: unity, in which Afrikaners use their resources to reorder society to work for all citizens. His advocacy of restorative justice sought to bring harmony, not inflict harm on former oppressors. The TRC sought to change this old way of thinking.

“One of the most blasphemous consequences of injustice, especially racist injustice, is that it can make a child of God doubt that he or she is a child of God.” 

Unjust treatment and discrimination can cause victims to internalize their oppressors’ depictions of them. As a result, they develop a sense of self-hatred and project that hatred onto others. They even imitate their oppressors’ brutality.

“It shook us to the foundations, though I believe that, had it happened at the beginning of the life of the commission, it would without any doubt have destroyed us.” 

Referencing the scandal when false accusations held that a TRC member had committed atrocities, Tutu recalls the TRC’s precarious position. Many white people in South Africa wanted it to fail, as they did not want any reckoning with the past. They could easily have prevented the TRC’s important contribution to promoting national unity.

“White South Africans under apartheid made the big mistake of confusing ‘legal’ with ‘morally right’ and thus would get very hot under the collar when I and others said unjust laws did not oblige obedience.” 

Tutu highlights the timidity of judges and lawyers who followed laws in obvious conflict with justice. This attitude revealed the white community’s unwillingness to question the unjust system. Conformity with the system was the norm, and these people accepted the government’s declarations unquestioningly.

“What is amazing is that there should have been those, and I keep acknowledging their significant numbers, who did not succumb to the insidious pressures of a pervasive ethos that permeated every aspect of life.” 

After explaining how racist assumptions infiltrated all of society’s institutions, including the media, religious organizations, and health care, Tutu points out that while most white people accepted the apartheid system, the fact that many white people questioned it is more noteworthy. He is emphasizing the apartheid regime’s thoroughness in socializing white citizens. That socialization, coupled with a physical separation from Black South Africans, led most white people to accept the status quo.

“They were part of the cosmic movement toward unity, toward reconciliation, that has existed from the beginning of time.” 

Referring to those trying to bring peace to Northern Ireland, Tutu believes that those working toward friendship and harmony are fulfilling God’s intention for humanity. While the world now experiences alienation and conflict, a force is at work to reverse those centrifugal forces and restore harmony. The TRC, in its efforts to bring unity through exposure and forgiveness, was also a part of this movement.

“True forgiveness deals with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible. We cannot go on nursing grudges even vicariously for those who cannot speak for themselves any longer.”

In response to a claim that we cannot forgive actions against victims who are now deceased, Tutu argues that to get past conflict, a community must act for generations past, present, and future. How else, he asks, could South Africa move beyond a racist past that stretches back to 1652?