Today I have the opportunity to see and hear from Desmond Tutu. If you don’t know who Archbishop Desmond Tutu is you should pick up his book, No Future Without Forgiveness. Prior to reading the book, which I borrowed from a friend when I new Tutu would be visiting, I hadn’t know much about him either, only that he had been involved in ending the apartheid in South Africa and working on reconciliation afterwards. This book gives a phenomenal insight into the way South Africa worked through the healing process after years of terrible racial atrocities.

The first few chapters are a little difficult to get through. Tutu is a brilliant academic and tends to use large words that makes it difficult to read quickly. However, those beginning chapters carefully lay the groundwork of how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed and what it set out to accomplish. It was an amazing task that they undertook. The goal being to bring truth and reconciliation to a broken country. The shift, when apartheid ended and Nelson Mendela became president in 1994, was monumental. You might compare it to when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed in the USA, ending Jim Crow segregation. In both of those situations there is still an ominous history that can not simply be swept away. I believe the racial tension experienced in the USA today has a lot to do with the fact that we never did anything to honestly address the injustice of racism and segregation.
In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to try and address that very dilemma. However, it was unique in that it was not a law-enforcing body, setting out to punish the wrong-doers, a task that would have been nearly impossible to really implement (How many here have been arrested or imprisoned for the lynchings, discrimination and harassments enacted before the Civil Rights Movement?). Instead, the TRC set about providing a forum for people to share their stories. Radio and Television gave special attention to the Commission, helping provide a national platform for sobering truth to be shared. Victims where provided opportunity to tell of the atrocities they or their family experienced, and there was healing in the sharing. Those who had committed crimes could apply for amnesty, provided they shared and gave full disclosure to all that they had done. The amnesty process was a controversial one, but I came to agree with Tutu’s perspective that it was the right thing to do. Many police, military and government officials came forward, sharing information that could have otherwise been kept secret for years to come. The sharing of truth provided closure for some many families who simply had know idea what had happened to their loved ones. The stories in the book are heartbreaking and yet the willingness of the victims to forgive and reconcile is profoundly moving.

If you haven’t read anything about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, you should pick up this book. I think it’s such a shining example of doing things differently than the retribution system we currently have in place. I’m not saying it’s necessarily going to be effective all the time, but it points to the human imagination, created by God to love one another far deeper and more creatively then racism, injustice and vengeance ever could.