Desmond Tutu Stood Among Giants at Global Racial Repair
By: The New Democracy Coalition Of Massachusetts
Tags: Desmond Tutu, Apartheid, South Africa, Reparations, Nelson Mandela

For sure, Tutu enjoyed an effortless relationship with leaders spanning across the world. His personal sway was marked by his seriousness and an exhaustive, searching disposition toward justice. He dedicated himself to the social and political changes needed to reform South African, even most doubted his tactics. Tutu’s connections with former president Nelson Mandela — who appointed Tutu to head the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s — enabled him to foment healing across that country after Blacks and Coloreds had gained de jure civil rights in the country. Tutu stood as a remarkable moral broker; he served as a conduit through which so much acrimony across the nation was released. As chair of the commission he knew what was expected of him: commandeering a delicate balance between the bitter millions who had been oppressed under the weight of apartheid and the murderous predilections of the nation’s former White ruling class.

If there is a precise way of conveying the complexity of human compassion — a way in which Duke Ellington did through jazz or the manner in which Hugh Masekla captured in Afro-punk Jazz — Tutu gave utterance to such sentiment in his daily working and cry for freedom. During the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, Tutu proved himself both as a paragon of cautionary calm and applied equanimity. This required, at onetime, Tutu’s ability to hold in check his rage as a victim of apartheid, while allotting also opportunities for Whites to see the errors of their wayward racial ideology. Tutu saw his role as a chaperone who would lead the way toward public lament, apology, repair and reconciliation. And Maskela would be helpful as a artistictically-bent sonic accompaniment during the pre-apartheird days of suffering. In his mid 30s, it would have been hard for the Holy Ghost-minded Tutu to not feel the effects of Masekela’s music — some of which served as anthems for the country’s hardboiled revolutionary freedom fighters. Grazing in the Grass is one of those tunes. It possessed a cultural muscularity that was unmistakable. Masekela would infused those in South Africa, like Tutu, who seemed beyond hope, those who wished and prayed for a North Star.

As much a practitioner of non-violence as he was a strategic planner in the realm of human rights, Tutu was able to galvanize the global imagination with wit and patience, command and a commitment to the integrity possessed by victims and muderous dictators fueled mostly by hate.

Perhaps because he had been inspired by the methodologies of American Civil Rights Movement leaders who sought to “redeem the soul of America” during the 1950s and 1960s, or because he had glimpsed the untidy results of the potential racial recriminations that could have easily been imposed by the majority of Black South Africans upon Afrikaners at the end of aparthied, Tutu acted countered productively: seeking a peaceful transition over some Black South Africans sought revesral and unilateral Black power— always raising his concerns about how he might help prevent his nation from sinking into a racial war of all against all.

Decades later, the ameliorative results Tutu sought are neither apparent nor entirely forthcoming as the nation continues its strides in the post aparhtied reality. Long after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) filed its lenghty findings, South Africa stands, in many ways, remarakbly divided along the lines of racial wealth inequality, housing segregation, heath disparities, and educational attainment.