Archbishop Desmond Tutu – Africa 2017 Transcript

June 20, 2017

Cape Town, South Africa

Ubunye Project – Mount Madonna School

 

Ward Mailliard: So, we’ve come and visited you many different years, from Mount Madonna School, and in those years we used to come and ask you a lot of questions and pester you like crazy, but today, we came for only one – well actually two reasons. One, they wanted to bring you some music, so they’re going to sing for you. The other is that we want to say something about what you mean to us, and what your life has done as an example for us. Ok? So if everybody wants to stand up, we have two songs for you today.

Students sing ‘We Shall Overcome’

Desmond Tutu: Wow. What else do we have?

Ward Mailliard: We have one more for you.

Students sing ‘Shosholoza’

Desmond Tutu: Wow, beautiful, beautiful, lovely. Better than some South Africans.

Ward Mailliard: One of the things we’re going to do after we leave Cape Town as we go to Johannesburg, there’s a wonderful man named Oupa in Tembisa who has organized some of the young people who are dancers and singers and we go up and we combine our two choirs together and we do a public performance in Tembisa.

Desmond Tutu: I love it, that’s lovely, that’s lovely. Congratulations. Beautiful, beautiful. Are you going to become choristers?

(a student responds)

Desmond Tutu: No? Yes, alright, alright. You’re quite right. But I mean adult choristers. What are you going to become? I mean a few years from now?

Ward Mailliard: What are you going to become a few years from now? Besides older.

Desmond Tutu: Yes.

Ward Mailliard: Anybody know what they want to do?

Desmond Tutu: What do you want to do?

Indigo Kelly: I want to be a doctor.

Desmond Tutu: You want to be a doctor? Yes?

Gracie Howley: I want to be – I want to do physical therapy and stuff, for athletics and coaching.

Ward Mailliard: Anybody else have a clue?

Lucas Caudill: Engineering.

Desmond Tutu: What’s that?

Lucas Caudill: I was thinking engineering maybe.

Desmond Tutu: Engineering, which engineering?

Ward Mailliard: These are juniors going into their senior year in high school, so they haven’t hit college yet.

Desmond Tutu: How wonderful though, it’s lovely. Is there anyone who wants to tell me what they do want to become?

Ward Mailliard: Anybody else here?

Desmond Tutu: I mean I don’t want to appear to snub you.

Zach Wagner: I want to be an astrophysical engineer.

Desmond Tutu: Woah.

Ward Mailliard: Whatever that is, right?

Desmond Tutu: What do you want to become?

Ward Mailliard: Let’s hear a couple more, what else? You know what you want to do Will?

Will Murphy: Yeah I want to be an actor.

Ward Mailliard: An actor?

Will Murphy: Yeah.

Ward Mailliard: He’s a very good actor too.

Ruby Bracher: Oh, I’d like to go into art and design maybe, illustration.

Ward Mailliard: Ok, anybody else?

Zac Clark: I’d like to be a marine biologist.

Ward Mailliard: And I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

Desmond Tutu: Yes, I know.

Ward Mailliard: So what we thought we’d do in the few minutes we have is, have a couple of the students talk a little bit about what it is that they have been inspired by in studying about you and about this whole profound epic in history. And do we want to start over here? Why don’t you come stand where I’m standing maybe? I’m going to have him come stand over here, so he can hear you better, and speak up.

Elias Moreno: Yesterday, we interviewed Thulani Mabaso on Robben Island, and he recalled some of the experiences he had, like educating and re-educating each other and they even created the template for the government there, and it was nice to see that he was so able to find hope and joy in such trying circumstances. And this seems to be a very big message that you show through example; to always find compassion and joy, no matter how difficult the situation might be. And this has been truly inspiring to me to see you and your nation suffer through this and you still hold on to and set an example of being compassionate, and joyful, and humorous throughout your life. And I would like to bring this back home also, and encourage others, as well as myself, through self-reflection and discussion to kind of spread the joy and keep finding the good in life.

Desmond Tutu: I’m blushing. Thank you very much.

Indigo Kelly: Hi, I’m Indigo, and I’m really inspired by the leadership you took in the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, after apartheid, and the strength it took for you and others to face these people who committed these horrific crimes with this love and strength in the face of fear and hatred and that’s really inspiring to me, and our class I think as a whole. So I want to thank you for that message, thank you.

Ward Mailliard: So we had a little bit of our own truth and reconciliation council in the class. There was a period in the year when people weren’t doing so well, they weren’t getting along well together, and it was of concern. I heard it as a teacher and member of the executive of the school. There was conversation about it and I was in India for a couple months at the orphanage we have. When I came home I heard it, you know things weren’t going well. So I sat with the class and we had an opportunity to create a space that essentially, when it was done, I said, ‘that was a truth and reconciliation counsel commission. It happened spontaneously. And so I asked a couple of the kids to say something about what that meant to them, what that changed for them. So let’s hear a few voices. Tell him your name too while you’re at it.

Jordan Willis: Hi my name is Jordan Willis, and when talking in the group setting along with people that I might have had a little bit of disagreements with, I found that I had really been struggling personally with finding my identity as far as in the context of racial issues, and growing up in an area that was predominantly white and myself being African American was- is a situation that is unique, I find. And being in a situation where I was faced with challenges and being able to kind of talk that through, like face to face with people who I had experienced these challenges from, helped me define that struggle and definitely has like shaped who I’ve become a little bit; it’s made me stronger and made me feel, you know, a little bit more grounded in that sense. So I appreciated talking in a group sense and being able to talk to someone who I was on the opposite side of a disagreement with.

Ward Mailliard: Nice. Alright, who else?

Gracie Howley: So I was going through a lot emotionally and my family was falling apart a little bit. And I only had my best friend to talk to and I was hanging by a thread of that one person. And when I heard everybody open up, it was the safest I’ve ever felt, so I told them all. And then without even knowing, I went from having one string to an entire net of all these people to fall back on. So that was very important to me.

Ward Mailliard: Ok, one more here? Anybody else? Who else were we talking about this morning? Speak up.

Phoebe Grant: I’m Phoebe, and after we had that conversation, it was like closure, and everyone just kind of changed. And it was like a new way for everyone to get along because we all knew so much about each other and we all felt so together, and it was just really nice to have.

Ward Mailliard: So the power of the example, you know? Because I know there was resistance to the idea at times that the truth and reconciliation would really do its job, and yet we had a direct experience that when people were open and vulnerable, where people could express the hurt and people could also express their profound apologies because they didn’t know; this class changed. And it’s only the second time in my career as a teacher that I’ve seen something like this happen, so it was very profound for me as well. And I thought, ‘my gosh’, you know? No future without forgiveness, we have to move forward. So that example of moving the nation forward through the commissions- even Thulani yesterday, he was one of the last prisoners on Robben Island, and he said, ‘yes we resisted, and then we agreed because we knew it was good for the nation.’ And I thought, ‘my god, what sacrifices people made for this country.’ And we see you at the epicenter of that, and every time I’ve met you, you hold that standard up for us. Thank you.

Desmond Tutu: I’m not being falsely modest, but I mean the heroes and heroines of the story are not the commissioners, I mean ourselves and the members of the (can’t understand), the different committees, we were just facilitators and given the great-very, very great privilege of listening to people unburden themselves and stay standing vulnerable. And yes, there are many, many moments when you realized that, this is a kind of epiphany and revelation of what God is like, and what God would want us to be. I mean, I wanted us to be- yes, thank you, thank you for thanking me. But I have always said that I’m a very good captain, only because I have a very good team. And the commissioners were remarkable people-are remarkable people. The Deputy Chair, Alex Boraine, we would not have God when we did if we had not had someone like Alex who was-we were funded very inadequately and there was nothing really for us, Alex took the bid between his teeth and went to find us buildings, offices. He was able to employ staff, and I was able to take the credit. I should shut up now.