Breakout Session
"No Future Without Forgiveness": Reflections on Desmond Tutu’s book and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa
Ronald Feenstra

There are at least five fundamental truths behind Desmond Tutu's book, No Future Without Forgiveness, said Ronald Feenstra in a discussion of the book. The session explored them all. These truths are universal; they apply not only to South Africa during and after apartheid, but are essential to learning how to forgive and reconcile in all relationships. These truths are all interrelated and fundamental to forgiveness, both to preach it and to enact it.

The first truth is that we are all part of a larger whole. When some are humiliated or diminished, all of us are. This truth relates to the Ubuntu theology taught by Tutu. Ubuntu theology says that all human beings are part of a bigger picture that we cannot fully grasp. As Tutu writes:

All South Africans were less whole than we would have been without apartheid. Those who were privileged lose out as they became more uncaring, less compassionate, less humane, and therefore less human; for this universe has been constructed in such a way that unless we live in accordance with its moral laws we will pay the price for it. One such law is that we are bound together in what the Bible calls ‘the bundle of life.’ Our humanity is caught up in that of all others. We are human because we belong. We are made for community, for togetherness, for family, to exist in a delicate network of interdependence. (196)

It is our superiority complex, our desire to feel self-worth, that causes us to become the “less compassionate, less humane” people. This truth relates to the second that was discussed: the capability of each of us to do awful evil.

We are all fallen, in depravity so deep that we cannot get out without God’s grace and forgiveness. And, as Issac Apol, an attendee at the seminar, put it, “rejection of that denies one’s own need for grace.” If we reject the fact that we are capable of awful evil, we reject the fact that we need God’s grace to forgive and sustain. We deny that God has power and control of our lives.

These truths relate to the third point that Tutu makes in his book, that we inhabit a moral universe, and evil, injustice, oppression, and lies cannot have the last word. "When we contradict the laws of the universe," Feenstra said, "one day we will pay." While it is true that we as humans are capable of awful evil, and our superiority complex makes us oppressors that humiliate others, our world is still a moral one, and truth and justice will overcome.

As Tutu says, “…ultimately goodness and laughter and peace and compassion and gentleness and forgiveness and reconciliation will have the last word and prevail over their ghastly counterparts.”

The fourth, and certainly the most debated truth, is that telling the truth is a form of justice. When someone harms another, wrongs are committed. But what makes those wrongs worse is when they are denied. The best way to right the wrongs is to tell the truth.

This is simplistic to say the least. John Dandridge, another attendee, put the issue in perspective when he said, “Truth is multifaceted.” There are many parts to a truth that make it whole. Having one person apologize cannot make it fully better because it is only one part of the whole story. Truth has many layers. For example, if two people were to look at the same person, one from the front and one from the back, and describe what they see, they will both be telling the truth. They will both be right. They are just describing two different parts of the same whole.

Reconciliation requires an apology and an attempt at reparation. This is Tutu’s last statement about forgiveness. Forgiveness does not require apology or reparation. One can forgive without being apologized to. But if relationships are to be restored, if reconciliation is to truly happen, an apology is required. One has to know that the parties involved are sorry and want to make things better.

This principle is the basis for the Restorative Justice Movement in South Africa now. This act restores not only the relationships that eroded during the years of apartheid, but it also restores the wrongdoer. It gives all parties involved a sense of peace, a sense of knowing that things are finally reconciled. It restores justice.

The truths presented in the seminar and the book are essential to South Africa’s restoration. They are also essential to each of us living in communion with one another as Christians and as human beings.

—Stephanie Watkins