Let’s follow Tutu’s example
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was waiting for me at a small table in the back of the dining room during the first week of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in East London, South Africa. I was the chair of the international monitoring project of the commission, and it was our first one-on-one time together.
His crimson robe and large smile beckoned me over. I knew how busy he was, and the whole world was watching these proceedings, so I was anxious not to take up much of his time. I quickly sat down and got to business.
“Archbishop, I want to record a statement to the people who might come to South Africa to be international monitors.” A broad smile came over his face and he reached out his hand to mine and said “Yes, yes. But first, let’s say hi.”
We laughed. and I was immediately at ease and realized his approach to human contact, his playful sense of self and his reminder to always connect, even in the most trying of circumstances, was a great lesson for me and for the world.
He would later explain it to me as ubuntu — a concept underlying the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process.
“There is no direct translation in Western terms,” he said, “But ubuntu is about connection to one another. That we are human through our relations to others. What I do to you I do to myself.” He went on to explain that this is “how people who had suffered so much could still come before the commission and the world with compassion, forgiveness and even joy and laughter after suffering such atrocities. That is ubuntu.”
Since then, I have carried this experience into every facet of my life. As a lawyer, I have used it to break down the “us versus them” dynamic of the law. As a partner and a father, I’ve reached deep to listen and to realize that the pain of others is not separate from me and strove to find the humanity in any conflict or concern. In later working in North and South Korea to build relationships and break down borders, I have always tried to see people as one and not fall into demonization and the illusions of separation maintained by our politics, both abroad and at home.
But Tutu was not only a great thinker but had an enormous soft heart. I would see him get angry, heard him preach in church with true fire and brimstone, and watched him get frustrated with the monumental task of healing the trauma of a nation while helping people “forgive but not forget.”
Yet, it is the humble moments that impacted me the most. The time he leaned toward me before the first hearings and said, “I have butterflies in my tummy.”
Or when early graphic testimony of torture and depravity brought the hall and world to silence, and he laid his head down on the table and wept for us all.
The statute that created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said, “there shall be ubuntu, rather than victimization,” and Tutu lived and breathed this principle. I watched from the balcony as victims and perpetrators came to testify, and Tutu would, before the hearing, approach each one of them and take their hand in his, welcoming them with a warm, infectious smile and, I imagine, saying a simple “hi.”
As we in Santa Fe embark on our own path to truth and reconciliation, may we be blessed with the spirit of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who passed from this life Sunday. May we then find compassion for one another, listen deeply to differing truths and remember our common humanity — together.
Eric Sirotkin is a Santa Fe lawyer and mediator who was the co-chair of the International Monitoring Project of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.