I am deeply, deeply sorry: Tutu

Thursday, 22 May 2008

I want to apologise, to ask for forgiveness on behalf of our people ...

It’s a reflection of our not having succeeded entirely as a nation to ensure that many more were able to share in the peace dividend.

Far too many are still living in shacks. Far too many are unemployed. The 5 percent growth rate has not been sufficient to soak up unemployment.

We human beings, ever since the garden of Eden, are looking for scapegoats. We remain children of Adam and Eve, and have the genes for looking for excuses ...

http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/crime/i_am_deeply_deeply_sorry_tutu.html

so long, it's hard for me to fathom that. And to ask for forgiveness instead of blaming the people? :wow:

If it fell short, then that's the fault of circumstance, not of his own doing. With that said, he is demonstrating a level of humility rare among prominent leaders and figures, a quality that is sorely lacking among many powerful world leaders. The situation in Zimbabwe is and was way beyond the country of South Africa's reach.

You said it for me, and for many. Thank you.

of American know about those in other countries deserving of notice, we rarely hear good things about those in foreign countries...what a rare leader indeed.

He was the spokesman for South African liberation before Mandela was released.

Because he was head of South Africa's Anglican Church (one of its biggest denominations, and church to about half of the country's whites) as well as the South African Council of Churches, the government couldn't touch him.

He also did amazing, amazing work organizing much of the NGO-based above ground legal liberation struggle through the SACC. He won the Nobel Pease Prize for his work in the early 1980s.

He has a truly remarkable speaking style -- one of a kind, you will never forget his voice if you ever have heard him.

I was privileged to spend an afternoon with him in 1986 visiting a group of political prisoners in a South African prison.

But he wasn't a politician. He was more like what Ghandi was to India -- a spiritual leader, not a political one.

As soon as Mandela was released, he pretty much bowed out and let the politicians take over.

He has stood firm against the bigots who make up the overwhelming majority of bishops in the African Anglican church (and others elsewhere):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7100295.stm

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, he said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had failed to demonstrate that God is "welcoming".

He also repeated accusations that the Church was "obsessed" with the issue of gay priests.

He said it should rather be focusing on global problems such as Aids.

"Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and Aids - a devastating pandemic, and conflict," said Archbishop Tutu, 76. "God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality."

Criticising Dr Williams, he said: "Why doesn't he demonstrate a particular attribute of God's which is that God is a welcoming God."

http://www.afrol.com/articles/13584

Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Price winner, has lent his name to the fight against homophobia in Africa and around the world. The prominent South African says homophobia is a "crime against humanity" and "every bit unjust" as apartheid.

The former head of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa made these statements at the launching of the book "Sex, Love & Homophobia", published last week by Amnesty International UK. Mr Tutu has written the foreword to the human rights group's book.

- We struggled against apartheid in South Africa, supported by people the world over, because black people were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about; our very skins, wrote the prominent Church leader. "It is the same with sexual orientation. It is a given," he added.

Mr Tutu says he could not have fought against the discrimination of apartheid and not also fight against the discrimination which homosexuals endure. "And I am proud that in South Africa, when we won the chance to build our own new constitution, the human rights of all have been explicitly enshrined in our laws," he said, adding that he hoped this soon would also be the case in other countries.

South Africa is so far the only country in the world where the constitution guarantees equal rights non-regarding sexual orientation. This is in stark contrast to most of South Africa's neighbour countries, where homosexulality often is punished by the penal code. Only recenty, a Botswana High Court ruling reaffirmed this legal practice.

He did (successfully) advocate the ordination of women in his own church, but doesn't seem to be quite as outspoken in criticizing his fellow African bishops on that point these days.

but then again, so is the South African Constitution and Constitutional Court.

Part of that is that when the SA constitution was drafted, they set out, purposely, to create a "state of the art" human rights charter.

One of the members of the Constitutional Court and then Supreme Court, Edwin Cameron, was both openly gay and openly HIV+ and he has played an important role in the Court's decision to legalize gay marriage and require HIV treatment as a human right.

Not just Bishop Tutu, but South Africa in general is way ahead of its neighbors.

That "state of the art" bill of rights in the SA constitition is actually modeled on the Canadian constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms (as are several others in the world). ;)

The Supreme Court of Canada and the SA Constitutional Court are known to cite each other's decisions in interpreting their own constitutions.

IIRC, it was Canada's and several other countries'. But I don't know whether those other countries' charters are all traceable to Canada.

Quite interesting if they are.

Good recording.

Still with plenty to say. I wish he would intervene on the Zimbabwe situation, though. His words would carry a lot of weight.

Much as in general I don't believe in having religious leaders in charge of government, I *do* think South Africa might be in a better position if Tutu were president instead of Mbeki.