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desmond tutu
Peace Is Just as Possible as War
On International Peace Day this September 21, imagine an unstoppable wave of peace actions sweeping across our country.
Sep 01, 2023
I am heartened each time I come across a study affirming that waging war is not an innate part of human nature, that we humans are just as likely to be peaceful as we are to be violent. To quote the revered anthropologist Margaret Mead, “warfare is only an invention—not a biological necessity.”
And why do I cherish findings by historians, anthropologists, psychologists, and others that we are not doomed inevitably to human conflict; that, in the words of President John F. Kennedy “our problems are man-made—therefore, they can be solved by man.”
In my lifetime, there has been barely a year that my government has not been at war overtly or covertly. By some calculations the United States has been involved in more than 100 wars since 1776—early on with Native Americans to steal their land, claim their natural resources, and imprison them on reservations. Between 1945 and 1989 the U.S. attempted to change other (many democratic) countries’ governments overtly and covertly 72 times. More than 4.5 million people have died in the more than two decades of post-9/11 U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Libya.
Recent landmark research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan of movements from 1900 through 2006 to overthrow dictatorships, expel foreign occupations, or achieve self-determination reveal that nonviolent resistance campaigns were more than twice as successful as violent insurrections with the same goals.
But war is relatively new in the more than 200,000-year history of us homo sapiens: Evidence of war dates back to 10-12,000 years ago, especially with the emergence of more settled communities. Further, societies that were once extremely warlike are now peaceful: the countries of Scandinavia, for example, and the tribes of the Iroquois from around 1600. Ireland, Austria, and Switzerland are neutral Western European countries, not members of NATO; and Costa Rica has eliminated its military in a hemispheric region where conflict has been rife. All undercut the notion of war being a deeply ingrained, inevitable biological behavior
Moreover, experts who have studied the history of violent and non-violent responses to conflict have found that violence is not the most effective nor successful way to resolve country-level disputes. Recent landmark research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan of movements from 1900 through 2006 to overthrow dictatorships, expel foreign occupations, or achieve self-determination reveal that nonviolent resistance campaigns were more than twice as successful as violent insurrections with the same goals. Elsewhere Chenoweth found that when women have leadership roles, they are “more likely to maintain nonviolent discipline… in resistance campaigns against repressive regimes.”
Especially uplifting, too, are the multitudinous creative individuals and movements in recent decades at work for peace in their countries. In 2005, 1,000 outstanding women peacemakers from 150 countries were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Why 1,000 women? Because “creating peace requires a culture of peace practiced by millions in our daily life,” explained their Nobel prize sponsors. Their slogan, “I am not a wall that divides—I am a crack in that wall” conjures up the lyrics of singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen: “There are cracks in everything/that’s how the light gets in.”
A final piece of wisdom about the necessity of sustaining peace following violent conflict comes from Liberian Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee, who brought Christian and Muslim women together in her West African country to end Liberia’s brutal 14-year-long civil war in 2003. According to Gbowee, “Stopping a war does not bring lasting peace.” Peace persists through peacebuilding, using community organizing and expressing dissent; teaching peace and nonviolence; and prioritizing the basic issues of women’s, racial and social equality, and environmental protection.
Few of us have imagined forgiveness as a crucial element of peace that can enable peace to endure. In 1995, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who had spent 27 years as a political prisoner before emerging as South Africa’s first Black president, called for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that offered amnesty to “those responsible for atrocities during the long nightmare of white-minority rule,” provided they publicly confess all the brutalities they had committed and request amnesty. The Commission intended to refrain from revenge and to reconcile the peoples of a deeply unjust, deeply racist society in order to inaugurate social healing that would last. Knowing that forgiveness would not assure perfect justice for all, Desmond Tutu realistically stated that simply punishing their oppressors with prison sentences may have resulted in a civil war ending with “a South Africa lying in ashes.”
There were shortcomings, though. Some of the worst unrepentant war criminals escaped prosecution; some citizens grievously harmed by apartheid citizens felt that amnesty was too easily given; and the country is still ridden with vast inequities. Elsewhere, others believe that peace without accountability for violence is a peace without justice, including Gbowee and other advocating for a war crimes court to ensure accountability for Liberian war criminals.
On International Peace Day this September 21, imagine an unstoppable wave of peace actions sweeping across our country, like that of the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. That day Congress closed so its members could attend environmental teach-ins; 20 million citizens and politicians (one-fifth of the population) came out for marches, rallies, and concerts; and 10 million children participated in peace teach-ins in their schools. A surge of environmental legislation and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by President Richard Nixon followed in the next years.
May we be part of finding our country’s lost path to peace: by peace education and active bystander programs in every school; by interracial and interfaith collaborations; by reparations for the historical injustices of slavery and theft of land from Native Americans; by ensuring women’s full equality, including restoring women’s reproductive rights; by beating warheads into windmills through shifting our government’s priorities from militarism to renewable technologies; and by demanding that our lawmakers have a real democratic debate on war, peace, and the military budget.
As Eleanor Roosevelt asked, “When will our conscience grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”
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South African Parliament Votes to Downgrade Embassy Over Israeli Crimes in Palestine
"As South Africans, we refuse to stand by while apartheid is being perpetrated again," the resolution's author asserted.
Mar 08, 2023
South African lawmakers voted Tuesday to downgrade the country's embassy in Israel in response to its apartheid, illegal occupation, and other crimes against Palestinians—a move welcomed by human rights advocates around the world.
The resolution to downgrade the status of South Africa's embassy in Ramat Gan, just east of Tel Aviv, to a liaison office was introduced by the center-left National Freedom Party (NFP), which hailed the measure's passage as "a historic moment for our country and a demonstration of our unwavering commitment to justice, human rights, and freedom."
Holding just two seats in the Parliament, the NFP secured the resolution's passage with the support of parties including the dominant African National Congress (ANC), Economic Freedom Fighters, United Democratic Movement, African Independent Congress, Al-Jama-ah, and Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania.
"We can no longer stand by while Palestinian human rights are being trampled on."
While Israel's Foreign Ministry called the vote "shameful and disgraceful," NFP Member of Parliament Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam, who introduced the resolution, said after its passage that "this is a moment Madiba would be proud of."
Emam was referring to former South African president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, who advocated for Palestinian rights and for Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.
"He always said our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians," Emam said of Mandela, who died in 2013. "Today we took a step closer to the attainment of that freedom for Palestinians."
\u201cNational Freedom Party (NFP) Parliamentarian and Whip of NFP Caucus Honourable Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam \n\n SOUTH AFRICAN PARLIAMENT PASSES HISTORIC RESOLUTION TO DOWNGRADE EMBASSY IN ISRAEL\n\nRESOLUTION BY NFP \n\n#NFP #NFPinParliament #NFP2024 #MyNFP #IsrealEmbassy #Israel\u201d— National Freedom Party - NFP (@National Freedom Party - NFP) 1678212377
"We can no longer stand by while Palestinian human rights are being trampled on," Emam asserted. "By passing this resolution, we are sending a powerful message to the world that South Africa remains a beacon of hope and a shining example of what is possible when we come together in pursuit of a more just and equitable world."
Emam continued:
This resolution demands accountability from Israel. It is a courageous move that demonstrates our commitment as a country to justice, human rights, and freedom. The state of Israel was built through the displacement, murder, and maiming of Palestinians. And to maintain their grip on power, they have instituted apartheid to control and manage Palestinians. This institution of apartheid by the state of Israel contravenes international law and is a violation of the human rights of Palestinians.
"As South Africans," he added, "we refuse to stand by while apartheid is being perpetrated again."
\u201c\ud83d\udea8BREAKING: The South African Parliament passes a historic resolution to downgrade South Africa's embassy in Israel.\n\n\u201cThis is a moment Madiba [Nelson Mandela] would be proud of. He always said our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians."\n\n#EndIsraeliApartheid\u201d— Ahmed Abofoul | \u0623\u062d\u0645\u062f \u0623\u0628\u0648 \u0641\u0648\u0644 (@Ahmed Abofoul | \u0623\u062d\u0645\u062f \u0623\u0628\u0648 \u0641\u0648\u0644) 1678200870
Israel—like the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western democracies—supported South Africa's apartheid regime and even helped it develop nuclear weapons. After the fall of South African apartheid and the return to majority rule, the ruling ANC has vocally opposed Israeli crimes against Palestine.
For example, in May 2018 the party responded to Israeli forces' killing of scores of Palestinian protesters by excoriating the actions of "people who continuously remind us all about the hate and prejudice Jews went through during Hitler's anti-Semitism reign [and yet] exhibit the same cruelty less than a century later."
More recently, the ANC last month cheered the expulsion of a senior Israeli diplomat from the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
\u201cThe moment when the Israeli delegation was expelled from the #AfricanUnion summit this morning in Addis Ababa. The Great African nations of South Africa and Algeria - victims of Apartheid and colonialism - reportedly requested it. Tel Aviv blamed it on "Iranian influence." \ud83e\udd23\u201d— Sharmine Narwani (@Sharmine Narwani) 1676723743
Senior South African officials have consistently condemned Israeli apartheid, which is being acknowledged by a growing number of human rights groups around the world, including in Israel.
Echoing former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Baleka Mbete—who served as South Africa's deputy president, National Assembly speaker, and head of the ANC—in 2012 called Israel "far worse than apartheid South Africa."
Like Carter and other Nobel Peace laureates including Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchú, Jody Williams, Betty Williams, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the late South African anti-apartheid activist and religious leader Desmond Tutu condemned Israeli apartheid.
The new NFP-led resolution follows last year's call by the South African government for the United Nations General Assembly to declare Israel an apartheid state.
The measure was also passed on the same day that the Palestinian National Authority called on the world "to take immediate, concrete measures to hold Israeli officials accountable for their crimes and continual incitement and threats to commit crimes against the Palestinian people."
\u201cThe State of Palestine calls on the international community to take immediate, concrete measures to hold Israeli officials accountable for their crimes and continual incitement and threats to commit crimes against the Palestinian people;\u201d— State of Palestine - MFA \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8 (@State of Palestine - MFA \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8) 1678176036
"Only the end of Israel's occupation and the dismantling of its apartheid regime will end this violence, racism, and fascism against the Palestinian people," the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement.
"If not accompanied by action, statements of condemnation will not suffice," the ministry added. "Urgent international intervention is needed to curb Israel's dangerous aggressions against the Palestinian people and to provide necessary protection."
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In South Africa as in Palestine: Why We Must Protect the Legacy of Desmond Tutu
Because of Tutu, we are constantly reminded that Israeli apartheid in Palestine must be fought with the same ferocity, will, and moral fortitude as that of South Africa.
Jan 18, 2022
Long before intersectionality became a prevailing concept which helped delineate the relationship between various marginalized and oppressed groups, late South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it all in a few words and in a most inimitable style. "My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together," he said.
Tutu will never die, because his words continue to lead the way, in Palestine as in South Africa.
Like other freedom and justice icons, Tutu did not merely coin the kind of language that helped many around the world rise in solidarity with the oppressed people of South Africa, who fought a most inspiring and costly war against colonialism, racism and apartheid. He was a leader, a fighter and a true engaged intellectual.
It is quite convenient for many in corporate media to forget all of this about Tutu, the same way they deliberately rewrote the story of Nelson Mandela, as if the leader of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement was a pacifist, not a true warrior, in word and deed. Tutu is also depicted by some in the media as if he was merely a quotable man who helped in the 'healing' of the nation after the formal end of apartheid.
There is no use to preach to South Africans, and those who knew Tutu well, to understand the great man's centrality in the anti-apartheid struggle and in the shaping of a powerful narrative, which exposed and, eventually, demolished apartheid.
As a Palestinian, however, I think it is very important to emphasize the crucial role played by Tutu in linking the apartheid experience in his country with Israeli apartheid and military occupation in Palestine, and in influencing a generation of Palestinian intellectuals who have sagaciously tapped into the collective South African anti-apartheid experience and applied many of its valuable lessons to the Palestinian experience as well.
"When you go to the Holy Land and see what's being done to the Palestinians at checkpoints, for us, it's the kind of thing we experienced in South Africa," Tutu told The Washington Post in an interview in 2013.
To be accepted into mainstream circles, activists of high caliber are often careful in the language they use and in the references they make. With weak and indecisive intellectual courage, they falter at the first challenge or in the face of abuse and attacks by their detractors. Not Tutu. When the man began making references to an Israeli apartheid in Palestine, Zionists and their friends were merciless in their accusations that the beloved spiritual leader, in the words of infamous American Zionist lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, was "evil".
Dershowitz, hardly known for his moral fortitude and well known for his undying love for Israel, was one of those who used the opportunity to cowardly pounce on the great South African spiritual leader almost immediately after the news of his death.
"The world is mourning Bishop Tutu, who just died the other day," Dershowitz said during an interview on Fox News on December 28, adding, "Can I remind the world that although he did some good things, a lot of good things on apartheid, the man was a rampant anti-Semite and bigot?"
Dershowitz also described Tutu as "evil". Indeed, Tutu was also 'evil' in the eyes of the racist apartheid government of South Africa, as he was 'evil' in the eyes of Israel. Mandela, Che Guevara, Yasser Arafat, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were also 'evil' in the eyes of the racists, the colonialists, the Zionists and the imperialists.
Expectedly, Tutu did not back down despite years of pressure and abuse. "I know, first-hand, that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark, indeed," Tutu wrote in 2014, calling on US Presbyterians to impose sanctions on Israel.
In that same year, an interview with the South African news outlet News 24, Tutu said:
"I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government."
It is such support by such great men and women like Tutu that gave the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement the needed impetus to build the foundation of its current success around the world.
Tutu went further. Instead of appealing to people's consciousness, he also reminded them that making the wrong moral choice is a moral indictment of them as well. "Those who turn a blind eye to injustice actually perpetuate injustice. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor," he said.
In South Africa, in Palestine and all around the world, we mourn the death of Archbishop Tutu but we also celebrate his life. Particularly, we celebrate the legacy that this formidable intellectual and spiritual leader left behind.
Palestinians all over the world paid tribute to Tutu. Palestinian Archbishop Atallah Hanna, himself a great warrior for justice, said that Tutu "will always be remembered for his rejection of racism and apartheid, including in Palestine."
Because of Tutu and his comrades, we have a roadmap on how to fight against and end apartheid, how to confront the racists and how to defeat racism; how to embrace our moral responsibility and how to strive for a better, more equitable world. And, because of Tutu, we are constantly reminded that Israeli apartheid in Palestine must be fought with the same ferocity, will and moral fortitude as that of South Africa.
Tutu will never die, because his words continue to lead the way, in Palestine as in South Africa. Equally important, we must never allow the honorable legacy of Desmond Tutu to be exploited, demonized or rewritten by his detractors or by those whose sensibilities cannot accommodate the courage of this black fighter, who will continue to lead the way, long after his passing.
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