Archbishop Tutu
A face of hope for the world
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu sailed around the world from February 3 to May 14, 2007 with Semester at Sea, the nation’s original shipboard study abroad program, for a 100-day educational journey with more than 700 college students and an international faculty appointed by the University of Virginia. Tutu, 75, served as a Distinguished Lecturer in Residence and presented a series of lectures on “patterns of conflict and paths to peace in a diverse world,” as the ship sailed from Brazil to Cape Town, South Africa. He also attended numerous classes, adding his views to those of the professors and students on such diverse subjects as women and development, religious cooperation, appropriate responses to AIDS, and global human rights. In one of those classes, a writing class led by Professor Eugene Hammond of the University of Maryland, Archbishop Tutu agreed to be interviewed by the class. What follows is a composite interview by the class, the heart of which was written by University of Pittsburgh senior Leigh Remizowski, with additions of sentences or partial paragraphs from most other members of the class.
On the first day of classes onboard Semester at Sea I finally managed to get out of bed for breakfast. The dining room was nearly empty, due to the ungodly hour of seven, and so I collected my food and noticed the Archbishop Desmond Tutu sitting alone in the corner. As we’d only been on our journey three or four days at this time, I wasn’t sure how to address him or how he would act toward students, but I decided that this was a once in a lifetime risk to take.
“Good morning, father,” I remember saying softly, afraid of a roll of the eyes or a heavy sigh from the well sought-out man. “My name is Sharon. Are you waiting for someone?”
The moment of awkward silence followed that I’d been dreading. But then something happened that I will never forget—he grinned a toothy grin and waved to the table. “I was waiting for you, Sharon.”
—Sharon Testor
Archbishop Desmond Tutu could not vote until he was 63 years old. He lived in a place where he was considered unfit to be a citizen and less of a person than those whose skin was just a shade lighter than his own. He saw ghastly things happen to his people under the Apartheid regime in South Africa and presided over the process of re-living those stories after freedom in the form of South Africa’s first democratic election finally came in 1994. Now the Archbishop’s dream is to use this hard-won political freedom to make the people of South Africa, and people around the world, truly free.
One would think that a past filled with devastating oppression would jade a person or fill him with bitterness. But today, 13 years after South Africa first tasted democracy, Archbishop Tutu gives an abundance of credit to human nature. “There is a lot of evil in the world,” he says. “But I would hope that we can also remember that there is a lot of good.”
It seems that it is impossible to break the spirit of this small, yet radiant man. His joy emanates from the ear-to-ear grin he wears across his face when speaking about the day he secretly told God it would be okay for him to die—the day he introduced Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first democratically elected president. His charisma echoes through the room when his high-pitched, staccato laughter erupts. His passion is portrayed in the canary yellow “Homeless World Cup” T-shirt he wears above navy shorts and matching knee-socks. And his optimism rings when he speaks about youth. “I have the highest regard for young people—I admire their idealism,” he said. “They believe that the world can become a better place.”
Citing Darfur, Burma, and Iraq as just a few of the places where problems fester and atrocities are committed each day, Archbishop Tutu makes it clear that he shares this youthful idealism. He has an innate desire to help those in need. “There are far too many people on the underside of history,” he said. This grave concern for the wellbeing of humankind is the foundation for his high expectations for the global community. Lowering consumption rates, finding a way to level out the severe income gap between rich and poor, and feeding the hungry are among his list of essential improvements. “This planet is the only home we have. Let’s take care of it,” he tells us. “Do something about global warming. We don’t need to use up so much. We can recycle if we take the trouble. Believe that poverty can be history. We are crazy. Why do we spend so much on arms when by redirecting that spending everyone could have clean water to drink? Why should it be that our people die of starvation? Why is this beyond our capacities? We have the moral capacity to ensure that no child ever goes to bed hungry.”
Archbishop Tutu credits his compassion for the underdog to his mother, who was uneducated yet led by example through her own work ethic and kindness. “She was stumpy and had a large nose,” he says with a smile and a loving chuckle. “But I hope something other than that might have rubbed off.” She worked at an institute for blind women, where Archbishop Tutu remembers accompanying her from time to time when he was young. At the age of nine, he has a vivid memory of a white man doffing his hat, commending the work of his mother. Struck by the gesture of this white man to his black mother, Archbishop Tutu attributes this unusual breaching of the racial barrier to his mother’s giving nature.
For a man that has lived the majority of his life being defined by his race, Archbishop Tutu remains a staunch believer in the equality of all—even his oppressors. “Everywhere you go you see that people are the same,” he said. “Under the skin we are the same! It’s only because we allow politicians to tell us differently that the world gets in such a mess.”
It is this attitude, coupled with his Christian values, that guided the Archbishop to be both a leader of the anti-Apartheid movement and the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was given the task of granting amnesty on an individual basis to the perpetrators of crimes during the Apartheid government. The TRC was where “the wounded were seeking to heal the wounded,” according to Archbishop Tutu. Victims of violence, hate crimes, and other injustices would get to tell their stories—in whichever of South Africa’s 11 languages was most comfortable to them—and in return the perpetrator would also confess in order for amnesty to be granted. After hearing these chilling stories, Archbishop Tutu would often request a moment of silence. “I would say we really ought to take off our shoes,” he says. “Because we’re standing on holy ground.” Looking back, he believes that “The real heroes were the ordinary people, who rose up and forgave.”
The TRC was based in the two pillars of Christian belief—truth and reconciliation— spelled out by its title. Archbishop Tutu, an Anglican minister, has kept these values constantly in view through times of tumult and times of peace. They are the values that allowed him to guide South Africa away from the hate and violence of Apartheid in 1994, and they are the values that allow him to view the world now through a hopeful lens. For even though horrible things exist in the world, they are, in the Archbishop’s eyes, only examples of God extending the power of choice to his followers. “God would let you go freely to hell rather than compel you to go to heaven,” he said. “Our God gives us the space to be.”
With this Christian foundation, Archbishop Tutu has fought off life-threatening injustices while leading his country back to its rightful path. A man that has stood his ground so strongly so many times in his life must have feared for his life at least once. When asked about this, the Archbishop replied that people react more with instinct than with thought in an intense situation: “If you’re standing on the curb as a large truck approaches when a child begins to cross the street, you don’t sit and think about it, you just go. If you succeed, then you think about it. Was I ever scared? Not scared at the moment, only afterwards.”
Archbishop Tutu has seen far worse than most will ever witness, yet he still smiles with a twinkle in his eye when the subject of helping others arises. This has proved to be what Archbishop Desmond Tutu preaches and lives for—because, as he said, “Evil is not the last word.” AV