1984 - Awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
If God be for us who can be against us?
Desmond Tutu: Biography, Ecumenical Caucus Statement at the World Conference Against Racism, Photos |
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| A quote about Archbishop Tutu: "The struggle against apartheid required and itself produced men and women of courage. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is one such outstanding patriot. . .Such is the character of a fighter against apartheid that he was 'public enemy number one' to the powers-that-be. And it is tribute to his independent mind that what he said was not always popular." - Nelson Mandela |
| When a student asked Desmond Tutu what injustice he would most want to reverse, he gave the following answer. "Will you give me two?" He said with a grin. First, Tutu called on world leaders to forgive the mounting debts owed by developing nations. Then he said, "the persecution of homosexuals is as unjust as apartheid". (1998) |
When asked what is the one encouragement he would give to young people, Desmond replied: "Dream! Dream. And then go for it! Young people are idealistic, they believe this world can become a better place-go for it! (1995) |
A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons. African proverb |
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. |
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. |
I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. |
Just as those who have been capable of the most horrendous atrocities turn out to be ordinary human beings like you and me, so too those who have demonstrated noteworthy instances of the capacity to forgive could easily be the man or woman living down the street. Wonderfully, forgiveness and reconciliation are possible anywhere and everywhere and have indeed been taking place, often unsung, unremarked. |
About reconciliation and forgiveness in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon:
"Forgiveness and reconciliation are not cheap, they are costly. Forgiveness is not to condone or minimize the awfulness of an atrocity or wrong. It is to recognize its ghastliness but to choose to acknowledge the essential humanity of the perpetrator and to give that perpetrator the possibility of making a new beginning. Forgiveness is an act of much hope and not despair. It is to hope in the essential goodness of people and to have faith in their potential to change. It is to bet on that possibility. Forgiveness, is not opposed to justice, especially if it is not punitive justice, but restorative justice, justice that does not seek primarily to punish the perpetrator, to hit out, but looks to heal a breach, to restore a social equilibrium that the atrocity or misdeed has disturbed. Ultimately there is no future without forgiveness." (2001)
After the increased military actions of the USA after September 11:
"he United States needed to realise as South Africans had that "true security will never come from the barrel of a gun". (2001)
On forgiveness and reconciliation:
"The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ puts the issue beyond doubt," he says. "Ultimately goodness, laughter, peace, compassion, gentleness, forgiveness, and reconciliation will have the last word and prevail over their ghastly counterparts. The victory over apartheid is proof positive of this truth." (2000)
On human rights:
Unless we work assiduously so that all of God's children, our brothers and sisters, members of one human family, all will enjoy basic human rights, the right to a fulfilled life, the right of movement, the freedom to be fully human, within a humanity measured by nothing less than the humanity of Jesus Christ Himself, then we are on the road inexorably to self-destruction, we are not far from global suicide-and yet it could be so difference."
On the African nations' debt situation:
"I called long ago for the cancellation of the crippling debt we have had to bear for so long. . . . There are others who have joined their voices in this campaign. There is something called Jubilee 2000. We ask our friends who have stood by us in the dark days of oppression and injustice. This is the new moral crusade to have the debt cancelled following the biblical principle of Jubilee. Basically [this principle] says everything belongs to God; all debts and mortgages must be cancelled in the Jubilee Year to give the debtors a chance to make a new beginning." -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a speech to the General Assembly of the All Africa Conference of Churches, October, 1997.
About lesbian and gay people:
"It is sad indeed that we as a church have more often than not turned our back on a significant portion of God's people on the basis of their sexual orientation. We have inflicted on gay and lesbian people the tremendous pain of having to live a lie or to face brutal rejection if they dared to reveal their true selves. But oppression cuts both ways. Behind our ‘safe’ barriers of self-righteousness, we deprive ourselves of the rich giftedness that lesbian and gay people have to contribute to the whole body of Christ" (1995)
On the arms industry:
" Armies have far too frequently been used not to protect the people but to repress them as they defended totalitarian and unrepresentative regimes… South Africa should dismantle its armaments industry. The arms race is particularly obscene amongst struggling poverty-stricken people" (1993)
On women’s ordination:
"We are grossly impoverished and we undermine the effectiveness of our mission and witness when we deny women access to the ordained ministry…I believe quite firmly that [ordination of women] is God's will for our Church at this time. We will be a more gentle, a more caring Church with women priests, for ordination is not to power or into an elite caste, but it is for service and sacrifice." (Archbishop Tutu, speaking at Provincial Synod 1992. - The synod passed a resolution in favour of women priests at this meeting)
On human rights, justice and violence:
"Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility." (1989)
I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.
On racial equality:
"My vision is of a South Africa that is totally non-racial...
a new South Africa, a free South Africa,
where all of us, black and white together, will walk tall; where all of us, black and white together, will hold hands as we stride forth on the Freedom March to usher in the new South Africa where people will matter because they are human beings made in the image of God."
Excerpt of part of Desmond Tutu's acceptance speech when he received the Nobel Peace Prize:
"This award is for you - Mothers, who sit near railway stations trying to eke out an existence, selling potatoes, selling meali, selling pigs' trotters.
"This award is for you - Fathers, sitting in a single-sex hostel, separated from your children for eleven months of the year.
"This award is for you - Mothers in the squatter camps, whose shelters are destroyed callously every day and who have to sit on soaking mattresses in the winter rain, holding whimpering babies and whose crime in this country is that you want to be with your husbands.
"This award is for you - three and a half million of our people who have been uprooted and dumped as if they were rubbish. The world says we recognize you, we recognize that you are people who love peace.
"This award is for you - dear children, who despite receiving a poisonous gruel, designed to make you believe that you are inferior, have said there is something that God put into us which will not be manipulated by man, which tells us that we are your children.' This award is for you - and I am proud to accept it on your behalf as you spurn a travesty of an education.
"This award is for you, who down the ages have said we seek to change this evil system peacefully.
The world recognizes that we are agents of peace, of reconciliation, of love, of justice, of caring, of compassion.
I have the great honour of receiving this award on your behalf. It is our prize. It is not Desmond Tutu's prize. The world recognizes that and thank God that our God is God. Thank God that our God is in charge." (1984)
Page updated on
Fri, Mar 15, 2002
