No Future Without Forgiveness

It is hard to imagine making a decision to build a list of South African reading without including Desmond Tutu's No Future Without Forgiveness. It's Tutu's own accounting of the work of The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a body formed after the abolition of apartheid in South Africa (read the Wiki summary here). Archbishop Tutu headed the commission which was formed by mandate when South Africa's new constitution was adopted.

It's not an exaggeration to say that the work of this commission is the hinge upon which the New South Africa sits. If it had failed South Africa fails.

This book lays out Tutu's own understanding of what the Commission was called to accomplish and it serves also as a sort of apologetic, since the TRC also had (and has) its detractors.

The book isn't very well written, and it does have that tone of hagiography I distrust, yet I found myself captivated. Tutu's own definition of reconciliation, his pursuit of ubuntu, and his overtly Christian leadership in seeking both for the sake of a nation are compelling.

The atrocities, what people did to others under Apartheid, are stunning. The system itself was always savage and crippling in its evil. The book contains testimony from victims and perpetrators alike that bring this home. The instinct is for justice: exacting, clear, punishing justice. Instead, what we get is Tutu's insistence that reconciliation is justice, the only kind of justice that will move his country (or ultimately the nations) forward.

He is steadfast in assuming that 'my humanity is caught up, inextricably bound up, in yours.' That's radical, and seeing him walk this line on a national scale without offering some sort of cheap amnesty to offenders is worth the price of admission in reading the book.

Ubuntu. I've been trying to live it this last week or so just by keeping it at the forefront of my thoughts as I interact with others:  

my humanity is caught up, 
inextricably bound up, 
in yours.