No future without forgiveness
Keren Contreras
11th
Author: Desmond Tutu
Born: October 7, 1931 (age 82), Klerksdorp, South Africa
Spouse: Nomalizo Leah Shenxane (m. 1955)
Children: Mpho Andrea Tutu, Theresa Thandeka Tutu, Trevor Thamsanqa Tutu, Naomi Nontombi Tutu Education: King's College London (1962–1966), University of South Africa (1954), St. Martin's School
Awards: Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, More
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid.
Summary
In No Future Without Forgiveness, Desmond Tutu tells the story of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), formed to to the countless crimes against humanity committed on all sides in dark history. Rather than burden the new nation with potentially never ending criminal paths. Where in the accused are constrained to defend themselves against the threat of imprisonment and victims can only expect state mandated retribution as a form of justice. The TRC gave victims and the accused the opportunity to simply tell their stories. Tutu shows how letting victims and perpetrators face each other as humans provoke courageous acts of penitence and forgiveness that serve as symbols for their nation and the world.
While Tutu's book looks at national reconciliation through the lens of Christianity, McAleese's focuses on the Christian crucial to forgive through the sight of Northern Ireland's move to reconciliation. McAleese makes the political personal, exploring not only a nation's effort to find forgiveness, but the individual's hard path to it. That path is well worn by the author, who has herself endured Northern Ireland's violence and who has responded, in part, with a personal spirituality practiced through Catholic evangelistic John Main's Christian meditation. McAleese enhances the richness and complexity of her ideas with the darkly...