Under the baobab: Desmond Tutu now among the ancestors who converse with us

This year of new beginnings rests on the shoulders of some passing notables: Sidney Poitier, Betty White, John Madden, and most profoundly, Bishop Desmond Tutu, the first Black African Archbishop of the Anglican Church of South Africa.

A Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Bishop Tutu was the chair and chief organizer of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was “mandated to bear witness, to record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations, as well as offering reparation and rehabilitation to the victims.“ The TRC was built on principles of forgiveness and reconciliation as opposed to revenge and retribution. Without the TRC, South Africa’s grand experiment in democracy would have surely failed, being dragged to the earth by racial and sectarian violence.

I first visited South Africa in 1978 as an observer during the trials of the Soweto students. Everyone I encountered — Black, white and so-called “colored” — was certain that the civil war between the Nationalist Party that controlled the apartheid government and the freedom-seeking forces of the African National Congress (ANC) would continue and become more violent. Even after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 the war was not averted. In 1994 Mandela was elected President in the first democratic election but it did not ensure peace.

At the conclusion of a war, winners usually determine the terms of the resolution. This war had ended with no clear winners or losers. People on both sides were left with feelings of anger, revenge, wounded by grief and pain. The TRC helped to provide a means to resolve those feelings.

I first met Bishop Tutu in 2002. He was the keynote speaker at a graduation ceremony for Black African students near Stellenbosch. I was there as a representative of Fulbright Fellows. I had a chance to ask him how the TRC was going.

“Things are proceeding slowly but they are proceeding,” I remember him saying. “The strongest opposition is coming from those who need it most, the ones most bruised by the years of conflict. They believe revenge will serve as balm for their wounds. It will not. Only love can fix hate.”

The second time we talked was at the University of the Free State in 2011. I was teaching theatre and film. He had come to observe the Reconciliation ceremony for the Reitz Four, which had been organized by the incomparable Jonathan Jansen, the first Black head of the formerly all-white university.

Four white Afrikaner students from the Reitz Hostel (fraternity) had humiliated and abused several Black domestic workers. They posted a video of the incidents, which went viral around the world. There was a public demand to expel, punish, even imprison the four boys. Jansen used a different tack. He organized a monthslong reconciliation process during which the boys were encouraged to engage directly with the workers. The forgiveness ceremony was the conclusion of that process. The boys publicly asked the domestic workers to forgive them. The spokesperson for the workers speaking in Xhosa, her own language, said, “We forgive you because we recognize all of you as our children.”

Later that year, Angelo Mockie and I created a dance/poetry program called, “Race, Reconciliation, and the Reitz Four” to celebrate the event. After a successful run in South Africa, Angelo collaborated with Elisha Clark Halpin to present the piece at Penn State.

The last time I spoke with Bishop Tutu was in 2013 in the months before Mandela passed. He had just visited the ailing icon. I asked what he had said.

“Madiba is no longer talking with us,” he said, “He is conversing with the ancestors.”

Today, Madiba, Tutu and all of the freedom fighters are the ancestors who converse with us, still. Ubuntu!