INFLUENCES WHICH SHAPED TUTU’S LIFE OF VIRTUE
By Mathieu Ndomba Ngoma
At least three elements played a major role in Tutu’s process of acquisition of virtues. The first element was his African culture characterized by the concept of ubuntu which conjugates together individual flourishing with community flourishing. The second element was the social and political context he lived in. This context was dominated by the system of apartheid. And the final element was his religious and Christian experience which led him to become archbishop of the Anglican Church. This section briefly examines these three influential elements at the basis of Tutu’s character formation.
i. - African Ubuntu culture
The most important influence which shaped Tutu’s life is his African Bantu culture. One of the aspects of the African culture which is very influential in the life of Tutu is its anthropology. Bantu anthropology focuses on a communitarian understanding of humanity known as “African communalism.”(1) This anthropology dominates the cultures of Africa in the South of Sahara. In the Bantu culture in which Desmond Tutu grew up, that communalism is known as Ubuntu. The word Ubuntu is from Zulu and Xhosa languages but has equivalent words in most of Bantu languages. In Zulu and Xhosa languages, spoken by Desmond Tutu, ubuntu means humanity understood from a community perspective. It is used in the saying Tutu usually quotes: Umntu ngumntu ngabantu which means a person is a person by means of other persons, that is, “we find our humanity in community.”(2)
The Ubuntu culture shaped the life of Desmond Tutu to the extent that he usually referred to himself as “we.” Tutu “points out that when a Xhosa is asked how he is and says ‘we are well’, he is not using the ‘royal we’, he is reflecting his membership of the family of mankind.”(3) This African communalism in which Tutu grew up made him aware of the need of equality, justice, community, and communal flourishing. It is the basis of the value of social solidarity, justice and peace in the life of Desmond Tutu.
ii. - Experience of an oppressed man and victim of the Apartheid system
The laws of apartheid, defined between 1950 and 1957, classified every South African according to race, prohibited black people from establishing registered labor unions, enforced social and residential separation, and prohibited marriages between Blacks and Whites.(4) They resulted into a total domination, oppression and pauperization of the majority of Blacks (73 %) by the minority of whites. Blacks were put into reserves and treated like animals. This situation of oppression led many Black kids to assimilate their situation to the extent of associating themselves to that fate and believing that that was the way God made things. It led them to self-doubt and self-hatred.
Apartheid, however, did not make Tutu angry; it rather gave him a better understanding of the dynamics of human relations. This positive twist in the formation of Tutu’s character was the result of at least three moments in his life. The first moment was when he read the stories of some successful Blacks such as Jesse Owens (Olympic Champion in 1936 in the Germany of Hitler), Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Marion Anderson. These stories helped the young Tutu not to sink into self-doubt and self-hatred. The second moment was the fact that early in his life, he related with some White people who gave him a different picture of a White man. The most prominent of the White people he related with, starting at age 12, was Bishop Trevor Huddleston who became his lifelong friend. From this relation Tutu discovered that oppression was not tied to the white skin. The third important moment was Tutu’s experience of freedom in London while studying at King’s College. Indeed in London, Tutu and his wife Leah and children had their first experience of a country where people of different races and backgrounds lived in peace and mutual respect of each ones’ dignity. This made Tutu dream of harmony in South Africa.
Consequently, as an oppressed man, Tutu had a mixed experience. On the one hand he felt the hatred and discrimination from White people through the system of apartheid. He realized that there was no community in South Africa or, at least, it was a divided community. And, on the other hand, he realized that life in freedom and respect was possible between Whites and Blacks. He understood that Blacks and Whites can respectfully live together in harmony. This shaped not only his struggle for freedom and justice but also his non-discriminatory and non-violent approach.
iii. - Religious and Christian experience
The religious experience of Tutu had a tremendous impact on his character formation. His first important religious experience took place when Fr Trevor Huddleston often visited him when he was sick in a hospital. There started a friendship which gave depths to his faith. It is after that experience at the hospital that he became a server at his parish church of St Paul’s in Munsieville and started a life of prayer. Along with Fr Huddleston there were Father Sekgaphane and Pastor Makhene who were such an inspiration for him that he considered following their footsteps.
Tutu became so committed to the Church that, in 1955, he became a Sub-Deacon at Krugersdorp. Three years later he joined St Peter’s Theological College in Rosettenville. Here Tutu was fascinated by the Fathers of the Community of the Resurrection running St Peter’s Theological College training Africans into the ordained ministry. They were not only committed to a life of prayer, but also taught by example and identified themselves with the oppressed and the suffering. (5) The Fathers of the resurrection had a tremendous impact on Tutu that when he recalls he says that they “enabled me to see very clearly something that I hope has stayed with me- the centrality of the spiritual.”(6) They shaped the ideal of priesthood in the mind of Tutu: a priest committed not only to prayer but also to justice; a priest identified with the oppressed and the suffering. Such a formation prepared him to endorse, many years later, Black Theology of Liberation. For Tutu, “Liberation theology becomes part of a people’s struggle for liberation: it tries to help victims of oppression to assert their humanity and so look the other chap in the eye and speak face to face without shuffling their feet and apologizing for their black existence.”(7) His ministry was his translation of liberation theology in religious, social and political terms.
All these experiences in the life of Tutu shaped in him the strong virtues South Africa needed to achieve the ideal of the good society.
(1)For a review of arguments and expressions for African communalism, see Joseph Nyasani, The Ontological Significance of "I" and "WE" in African Philosophy, found at http://home.concepts-ict.nl/~kimmerle/frameText8.htm, accessed on May 6, 2005.
(2)J.H. Smit, “Ubuntu for Africa: A Christian Interpretation,” in Ubuntu in a Christian Perspective (Potchefstroom, South Africa: Institute for Reformational Studies, 1999), p. 13.
(3)Shirley du Boulay, Tutu: Voice of the Voiceless (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), p. 114.
(4)Hendrik J.C. Pieterse, “The Context of Apartheid,” in Desmond Tutu’s Message: A Qualitative Analysis, edited by Hendrik J.C. Pieterse, Empirical Studies in Theology, Vol. V., Gen. ed. Johannes A. Van Der Ven (Leiden, Boston, Koeln: Bril, 2001), p. 15.
(5)Du Boulay, Tutu…, p. 48.
(6)Ibid.
(7)Ibid., p. 85.
No comments:
Post a Comment