Desmond Tutu is a small man with a big laugh. He is nothing less than effervescent, eyes sparkling behind gold spectacles, hands gesturing energetically. He bounces into rooms like an elf, projecting an aura of joy that at once puts others at ease and rivets their attention.
It is this black South African, whose charm and spirited manner are downright disarming, who recently was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Millions around the world have since come to admire and appreciate this delightful man.
Yet his very merriment threatens some of the most powerful men in the world—not only the white rulers of South Africa, but also corporate magnates and even President Reagan, who graciously invited Tutu to meet with him at the White House after the Anglican bishop had, in public, all but dared him to do so.
Tutu has a gift of "speaking truth to power," and he draws his courage from spending several hours in prayer each day. His commitment and integrity are fruits of his deep love for God and his people. He is motivated by a finely tuned sense of the injustice of the world, and he is haunted by the memory of a young black South African girl who told him she drank water to fill her stomach.
No treatment of the South Africa issue could be complete without a portrait of this extremely influential man. Those who oppose Tutu and his causes call him dangerous and subversive. Those who know him call him a man of God. He is head of the South African Council of Churches and recently was installed as archbishop of the Anglican Church in Johannesburg, South Africa.
What we offer in this issue are only brief glimpses of Desmond Tutu—the Christian, the Nobel laureate, the newsmaker, the preacher.
The item presented here contains excerpts from a press conference Tutu held at the Washington Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on December 23, 1984.
Into a Glorious Future: Nobel Laureate Speaks to the Press
Press: Do you think upon returning to South Africa that attitudes will be much changed?
Desmond Tutu: There will be a sense of exhilaration, I think, on the part of blacks and those whites—and there are many of them—who would like to see things changed in South Africa. The peace prize has been a recognition of the role of the South African Council of Churches and those associated with it.
I think the focusing of attention on South Africa will have an effect on the authorities in that land. I don't think it will be a positive effect. Certainly their reaction will not be a positive reaction. They will be rather mad.
What do you think of the demonstrations here in the United States?
They are just superb things. They have warmed the cockles of my heart. It is a tremendous sense of solidarity. And I am quite certain that those—in addition to the extraordinary conversion of the Republicans—must have made the president decide to invite me to the White House.
Do you think Americans could be doing more than that?
Of course.
How would you like to see the movement escalate?
I think we have got to get "constructive engagement" changed. That is the main thing.
And I want to agree with someone. In a letter to the Washington Post, someone said it would be a very good thing if maybe there was a switch around in American policy so that the policy of the U.S. in Nicaragua was applied to South Africa. And that applied in South Africa might very well be applied in Nicaragua.
I understood you to say that if this country had taken the steps that other countries have taken, apartheid would end tomorrow. Could you elaborate on that?
What I meant is if President Reagan were to say to President Botha [of South Africa], "You have had it unless, one, there is an end to the violence and the use of the army; two, you lift off banning, banishment, and detention orders; three, you stop all forced population removals; and four, you stop the denationalizing of blacks. You can be sure that the cover we have been giving you against the hostility of the world is gone unless that happens within a specified timetable."
Countries like the Scandinavian countries have taken far sharper actions against South Africa, but obviously it is the U.S. that rules the roost. I mean, if the U.S. coughs, everybody catches a cold.
Who do you hold responsible for the situation in South Africa?
The guys who are ruling. Those are the people who are responsible for the problem. They had a head start on us in education, in all kinds of ways, and the West has protected the whites in South Africa.
Can you imagine what would have happened if it had been nearly 200 whites who were killed during the unrest?
You get very worried that it looks like, when it comes to the crunch, black life doesn't count too much. I don't want to believe that, but the way things operate in this world, you find that a black skin is not always a very good thing to have. At least that is how they try to make it out. I am glad, of course, that I am black.
You've spoken to the president. Do you think that he is morally committed to ending apartheid in South Africa?
I would hope so. It was interesting when we met with him. It appeared initially to have been a sort of form meeting intended perhaps as a sop to those who were demonstrating and so on. It turned out to be a meeting where there was a great deal of listening.
And while I don't think there was too much of a meeting of minds, on the Monday following our meeting, he certainly escalated his rhetoric against apartheid and incorporated some of the points that we had made to him as indicators of change. I don't know. We always assume that you are a saint until the contrary is conclusively proven.
With your increasing notoriety, are you worried about your safety when you return home?
(Laugh.) I work on the presumption, and it is a very big presumption, that if you are doing God's work it's his business to look after you. You don't spend time worrying. It doesn't help in any case.
And if you should be liquidated or, as an interesting manual said, you are neutralized, what is actually the point? Nobody is indispensable in an ultimate kind of way. If you are on center stage and God decides you've got to exit—why, you exit as gracefully as you can.
If constructive engagement does not change significantly, what might be the outcome of another four years of that policy?
I have been away from home now for a few months. I have always told people that our situation is so volatile that if we had an explosion now I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know that people can survive four years of the kind of medicine we have been receiving.
I don't think so. I hope I am wrong. I said on one occasion that it was maybe five minutes to midnight. I think I could say now it is one minute to midnight.
How does South Africa compare to other nations that violate human rights?
We've got a peculiar situation in South Africa. One, it is the only country in the world where racism is entrenched in the constitution. Two, it is the one country that claims to be the last bastion of white Western Christian civilization and, therefore, has got to be judged by those standards. And I have said myself that I am glad I am not white, am not Christian, am not Western, am not civilized, if the standards are the kind of thing obtained in South Africa.
Another thing is that South Africa is a microcosm of the world. You've got there a First World situation—affluent, developed technologically—and a Third World situation side-by-side. And then there is race—a white race on the one side and blacks on the other.
And if we could solve our problem in South Africa—well, let me say when we solve our problem in South Africa—we will be providing a paradigm for the world.
And you see, what we are looking for is not driving white people into the sea. What we are looking for is a new society where we are saying, "Hey, you are not going to be free, white people, until we are free. We are bound with one another. You are spending too much of your energies protecting your separate freedoms and have little time left over to enjoy.
"Hey, let's try hand-in-hand together, black and white, into this glorious future that God opened up for us in this wonderful land so that we together—black and white—can walk tall and know that we count not because of the color of our skin, but we count because we are each creatures of infinite value made in the image of God."
Isn't that marvelous.
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