Nobel Peace Laureat Archbishop Desmond Tutu left us a legacy of non-violent activism and restorative justice
We learned with sadness the death on Boxing Day, Dec 26th 2021, aged 90, of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African Nobel Peace Prize winner: a man who provided a moral compass to his native South Africa, to the African Continent and to the Whole World. A fearless champion of justice, Tutu was witty, courageous, emotional, and eloquent. A lovely man. He coined the name RAINBOW NATION for post-apartheid South Africa.
When Nobel Peace Laureat Archbishop Desmond Tutu died in Capetown at Christmas, we immediately added a tribute in our January 2022 RICHMOND CHIWARA. You can read it by following this link to past issues of our monthly Richmond Chiwara newsletter published by Virginia Friends of Mali.
https://us20.campaignarchive.com/home/u=3fc13b3ee64508366fa23697c&id=e398f1452d
In remembering “the Arch” we also wish to remember the messages of tolerance and justice that he preached. Tutu emphasized that western justice tends to be retributive: punishment = vengeance for what was done wrong. “The African understanding, “ he wrote, ”is far more restorative: not so much to punish, as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew.”
Martin Luther King disapproved of the Old Testament (Book of Exodus) lex talonis, writing that “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.” Archbishop Tutu headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, because he believed that there would be no South African democracy until and unless everyone told the truth about their sins and crimes committed under apartheid.
When you forgive, you not only reclaim the moral high ground, but you remove the violence of hatred that is a cancer in the individual and on Society.
The Rev Michael Eric Dyson wrote a powerful essay “Let’s listen to Tutu about forgiveness” in the New York Times, which we recommend for your study.
Forgiveness is better than revenge. Non-violence is better than violence.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/opinion/desmond-tutu-america-justice.html
Alfred Nobel, founder of the Peace Prize was an arms manufacturer. Satire is always weaker than reality. Even in Norway.
African Peace Laureats have been: South Africans Chief Albert Luthuli (1960), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984) and Presidents Nelson Mandela and Frederik de Klerk (1993); Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat (1978); Ghanaian UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (2001); Kenyan ecologist Waangari Mathai (2004); Egyptian Mohamed El-Baradei (2005), former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Liberians Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee (2011); a quartet of Tunisians (2015); Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege (2018); and – somewhat embarrassingly given that his country is now in civil war - Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (2019).
Living Nobel Peace Laureats in sub-Saharan Africa are the following: the gynecologist surgeon Dr Denis Mukwege (66) in Bukavu, Eastern Congo; Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (83) peace maker and former President of Liberia; Madam Leymah Gbowee (49), leader of the Liberian Women’s Peace Initiative.
To whom we must add Egypt’s Dr El-Baradei (now 79); Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (still only 45); and the consortium of four organisations – the Tunisian General Labor Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers – recognised in 2015 for establishing “an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war”.
A full list of Africa’s Nobel Prize winners is at : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/9/africas-nobel-prize-winners-a-list
La leçon tolérante de la vie de Desmond TUTU -
Le décès du Prix Nobel Desmond Tutu, achevêque sud-africain fut annoncé le 26 décembre 2021 à l’âge de 90 ans. Le Prix Nobel de la Paix a fourni à l’Afrique une moralité de la verité appuyée de son humour, son courage, ses émotions et son éloquence. C’est de TUTU que vient l’expression Une NATION ARC-en-CIEL pour décrire son pays renouvelé post-apartheid.
Nous nous devons de nous souvenir également de ses messages concernant la tolérance et la justice. La justice occidentale est punitive, cherchant la rétribution pour un mal. “La compréhension africaine, disait Desmond Tutu, est plutôt restorative: moins une punition, que la restoration d’une équilibre qui a été dérangée.”
Si tu pardonnes, disaient Tutu et Martin Luther King qui prêchaient tous les deux la non-violence, tu te places sur une plaine supérieure de moralité et tu enlèves la violence de la haine, qui agit comme un cancer sur l’individu et sur l’ensemble de la Société. C’est dans l’esprit du pardon que Tutu avait présidé la Commission pour la Vérité et la Réconciliation en Afrique du Sud.
Le Pasteur Rev Michael Eric Dyson a publié dans le New York Times un essai puissant “Let’s listen to Tutu about forgiveness” = Ecoutons Tutu sur le sujet du Pardon.