DESMOND TUTU: AN AFRICAN LEADERSHIP ROLE MODEL (PART III)

SALIENT VIRTUES IN THE LIFE OF TUTU

By Mathieu Ndomba Ngoma

Thomas Aquinas defines virtue as a “habit by which we work well.”[1] It is an operative habit which makes its possessor good; or a “perfect habit by which it never happens that anything but good is done.”[2] The life of Desmond Tutu manifests many operative habits leading not only to the good of the South African society, but the good of the whole humanity. Three of these operative habits can be seen in Tutu’s character as a just man, as a courageous man, and as a peaceful and non-violent man. This section aims at showing how these habits are operative in the life of Tutu.

i. – Tutu’s habit of bringing justice through reconciliation

The issue of human dignity has a tremendous importance in the life of Tutu. His fight against apartheid was motivated by the desire to give back dignity not only to the oppressed but also to the oppressor. In fact, Tutu believed that the act of dehumanization affects the dignity of both the oppressed and the oppressor. For him, “To dehumanize another inexorably means that one is dehumanized as well.”[3] Since the character of Tutu was the one of building bridges between people, he understood such rehabilitation of human dignity through reconciliation and forgiveness. His approach to justice and rehabilitation of human dignity springs from his character as a reconciler. He had “showed himself as a reconciler in every dimension of his life –including humour.”[4] “Tutu is by nature a reconciler; his wish is to build bridges rather than destroy them.”[5]

Building bridges through reconciliation was not only the way he understood justice, but also the way he lived and practiced justice. He lived and practiced justice not exclusively in terms of retribution but also in terms of reconciliation. In this sense, justice implies building bridges between people as a way of rehabilitating the dignity of the unjust and of the victim of injustice. Two facts of the life of Tutu can elucidate this way of understanding justice. First, it is elucidated through his stubborn willingness to negotiate and to dialogue. For instance, in 1980 when the Black resistance was becoming more and more violent, he encouraged the members of South African Council of Churches (SACC) to seek for a meeting with the Prime Minister. The meeting was obtained but it did not advance to anything concrete. People claimed the naïve method of Tutu. Yet Tutu responded by referring to the story of Moses and Pharaoh. Moses had to go many times to negotiate with Pharaoh. He committed himself to go back to the table of negotiation. He preferred “to negotiate rather than to confront, and to reconcile rather than to attack.”[6]

The second and perhaps the most important element showing Tutu’s habit of bringing justice through reconciliation is his work at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the beginning of the democratic era. Nelson Mandela, the first Black President elected in 1994, appointed Tutu as the Chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission addressing human rights violations in South Africa. The idea of this commission did not come from Tutu at first. It was suggested by a member of Nelson Mandela’s party, Kader Asmal, who was a professor of human rights and law. Asmal suggested that instead of Nuremberg trials, South Africa should look at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Tutu endorsed this idea because this commission viewed justice not in terms of witch hunting enterprise, but in terms of reconciliation.

ii. - Tutu as a courageous man

The apartheid regime was so violent that Church leaders who were against it were too afraid to speak out. The situation required a lot of courage because all those who spoke out against the system were threatened with death. Daring when there is death threat is what Thomas Aquinas calls fortitude or courage. For him, “it belongs to the virtue of fortitude to guard the will against being withdrawn from the good of reason through fear of bodily evil…. And the most fearful of all bodily evils is death, since it does away all bodily goods.”[7] Tutu at many occasions showed that he had the firmness not to withdraw before death threats coming not only from the government, but also from the people who supported the system. Opposing apartheid was a very risky business indeed. It meant to be ready to go to prison or to die. The case of Mandela who spent 27 years in prison explains well the situation. Many were killed including children.

Tutu received a remorseless stream of death threats, obscene telephone calls and bomb scares. Du Boulay reports that, “Tutu has declared that, whatever the cost to him, he will do all in his power to destroy apartheid; Leah, with typical wry humour, is sure that even if his tongue were cut off, he would not be prevented from speaking.”[8] Du Boulay actually compares Tutu to a prophet when he writes that “Tutu’s stand on apartheid is unequivocal and, like the prophets, he speaks out courageously, with insight as much as with foresight.”[9]

The courageous character of Tutu became even more manifest after two events. First, when, on March 1st, 1978, he became the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC). Second, Tutu became even more active when all black organizations were banned. After these two events, he became the voice of the oppressed, a vehicle of black aspiration for freedom and liberation. From that time, he engaged the SACC to the process of disobeying unjust laws of apartheid. The SACC accepted the principle of civil disobedience. It therefore gave a “moral justification to any of its members who felt their cause could be furthered by refusing to co-operate with laws they considered unjust.”[10] Only after this that it was, for the first time, officially reported, in the news, that Christianity and apartheid could not co-exist.

The courageous stand of Tutu against apartheid was perceptible through his conferences, meetings, letters, homilies, telegrams, statements… In 1980 he marched with other Church leaders to the police headquarters in Johannesburg. He was arrested and put to jail. He was freed after one day because of worldwide protest against the action. Yet he did not give up till in 1994 when finally the country could hold free and democratic elections.

iii. - Tutu, a peacemaking man through non-violent methods

Peacemaking is a virtue because, to paraphrase Aquinas, it makes a peacemaker a good person. For Aquinas, a peacemaker “is one who makes peace, either in himself, or in others: and in both cases this is the result of setting in due order those things in which peace is established, for "peace is the tranquility of order," according to Augustine.”[11] The life of Tutu fits very well in this definition of a peacemaker. Tranquility and the order maintained by justice and reconciliation were Tutu’s vision for South Africa. He is a man of peace. And the peace he longs for is more than the absence of war. For Professor Villa-Vicencio, one of the Fathers of the African Theology of Reconstruction, the peace Tutu has come to symbolize is “the active, positive exaltation of justice and social harmony.”[12]

Violence never became an option for Tutu during his struggle against apartheid. His Christian and religious experience led him to strongly believe that peace is the fruit of justice and it can only be achieved through non-violent methods. He said once, “There is no peace in South Africa. There can be no real peace and security until there is first justice enjoyed by all inhabitants of that beautiful land.”[13]

Tutu lived on his conviction on the connection between peace and justice. He denounced violence and brutality, whether it came from the government or from Black people. He always asked people to avoid bloodshed. Du Boulay reports one of the many incidents showing Tutu’s struggle for peace and his effort to hold back a tide of violence. During a funeral of four Black young men, when people turned violent, Tutu asked them to abstain from violence and to change apartheid by peaceful means. He then “tried arguing with them. ‘Why don’t we use methods of which we will be proud when our liberation is attained? This undermines the struggle.’”[14] At another funeral in Duduza, when people turned violent, Tutu had this to say out of anger: “If you do that kind of thing again I will find it difficult to speak for the cause of liberation.”[15]

The peacemaking efforts of Tutu were internationally recognized. First, they were recognized by the Nobel Peace Prize committee which awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. The Nobel Prize Committee considered apartheid as a system which was against peace. Consequently, fighting apartheid was considered as an action for peace. Fighting with peaceful and non-violent means even added to the restoration of peace in South Africa. The second international recognition of Tutu’s peacemaking efforts came in 1986 when he received, in Atlanta, United States, the Martin Luther King Peace Prize.



[1] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIa IIae, Q.56, art.3.
[2] Ibidem, Q.56, art.5.
[3] Desmond Mpilo Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 35.
[4] Du Boulay, Tutu… , p. 100.
[5] Ibidem, p. 166.
[6] Ibidem, p. 168.
[7] Aquinas, IIa IIae, Q. 123, art. 4.
[8] Du Boulay, Tutu…, p. 157.
[9] Ibidem.
[10] Du Boulay, Tutu…, p. 160.
[11] Aquinas, IIa IIae, Q. 45, art. 6.
[12] Villa-Vicencio is cited by Du Boulay, Tutu…, pp. 232-233.
[13] Naomi Tutu, The Words of Desmond Tutu (New York: Newmarket Press, 1989), p. 47.
[14] Du Boulay, Tutu…, p. 222.
[15] Ibidem, p. 223.