"In the End They Bite the Dust"

South African cleric and activist Desmond Tutu during the interview - Photo: Mariam Shalikashvili

Each year the University of Vienna grants one individual its highest academic honor: an honorary doctorate. This year it was awarded to the former South African Anglican Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, for his laudable work in theology. Tutu is a life-long champion of human rights and an activist against injustice, poverty, and suffering. These stances, coupled with his African spirituality, have enabled him to breathe new life into theology as well position him as a main contributor to a nascent global human rights culture.

The ceremony took place in the main University building on Vienna’s Ringstraße, in a Renaissance- and Baroque-styled room named Der Große Festsaal, a magnificent hall with original murals by Gustav Klimt and Franz Matsch. The laudatio, the praise of the honorandus, was delivered by the Dean of the Evangelical Theological Faculty, Dr.Dr.Dr. (no joke) James Alfred Loader. He began with commending Tutu for uplifting people, as well as theology, by infusing it with South African Ubuntu philosophy. Tutu initiated a “new orientation of theology,” Loader said, which has spread all over the world.

The ceremonial part of the program was performed entirely in Latin. In high spirits, and in reference to the Latin, Tutu commenced his laureate speech with irony: “I don’t know that I understood most of what’s been going on but I presume that we are right: I am now a Doctor of this University.”

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, rural South Africa, in 1931. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for being a unifying leader in the cause of opposing and defeating South African apartheid, a system of racial segregation and discrimination. Tutu was elected and ordained the first black South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town in 1986 and chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) during its operation 1995-1999. The TRC was set up to find out about gross human rights violations during apartheid, and to grant amnesty to wrongdoers for admitting the truth as long as their actions were not motivated by personal greed or racial hatred. It also granted compensation, mainly symbolic sums of money, to victims of these abuses. The revelations by the TRC contributed greatly to normal white South Africans’ realization that the apartheid governments they had elected were in fact criminal organizations. Tutu was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims in 2003. This UN-affiliated court charges and tries individuals with crimes against humanity regardless of their nationality or diplomatic status. Furthermore, he chairs The Elders, a group of world leaders, including Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, who wish to contribute their wisdom to dealing with the most difficult problems faced by humanity.

He is also an avid activist in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In 2004 he founded the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, which provides care and support to those infected, teaches children how to avoid HIV, and trains doctors, nurses and counsellors. He was recently a UN Human Rights Council envoy to the Gaza Strip, where he investigated a massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli army. As a result of his unique services to humanity, Tutu is one of the most awarded people in the world. He is also a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and the Gandhi Peace Prize. Loader joked that Tutu perhaps holds more honorary doctorates than all awarded by the University of Vienna put together.

An enthusiastic, capacity-crowd audience awaited him in Vienna. He thanked those present who had helped South Africa be free, who had boycotted South African products, held vigils and demonstrations against apartheid. He then went on to describe his country’s largely peaceful liberation process, of which he is an integral part. The South African miracle of 1994, he continued, could serve as a role model for other seemingly insurmountable conflicts, raising prospects for victims of the world’s lingering conflicts, in Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Zimbabwe.

He singled out the suffering of “God’s children” in Darfur, and of the Palestinian people. In the face of all this misery, he poignantly asked, “And you? You say, ‘Oh no, no. This is an awful world’…But in the end the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Francos, the Amins, the perpetrators of the injustice of apartheid: in the end they bite the dust – in the end!”

Tutu ended his speech on an optimistic note: “And so one day…we are going to see the Jews and the Palestinians live together side by side amicably,” he said, “because this is God’s world and goodness and laughter and joy and caring and sharing: those are what will have the last word.”

In the press conference after the ceremony, Tutu requested the press corps be kind with their questions. Asked by The Vienna Review what he would like to see happen tomorrow to ease the suffering of the Palestinian people, he replied, “I would like to see an end to the blockade, a stop to settlements, the Wall must be brought down,” he said, and continued: “an end to checkpoints or as few as possible, mutual recognition of humanity; and in turn Hamas must stop firing those Qassam rockets.”

“There are glimmers,” he added, “of hope like the Israeli peace camp and the refuseniks [Israelis who object to doing military service]. In the past I have been critical of the Reagan Administration, but I was never accused of anti-Americanism,” he stated. “However, recently I have been targeted in the USA as ‘anti-Semitic’ for my criticism of Israeli laws and policies…But I have never been anti-anything, except anti-injustice and anti-oppression.”

The focus of the press conference shifted to African affairs. The Vienna Review asked Tutu what he considered was the greatest failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Tutu mused: “That was a mean question…but a legitimate one. The TRC was always going to be flawed, you know? We didn’t have the infrastructure, staff, or offices necessary,” he explained. “The government was ‘mean’ to victims, the TRC seen as ‘perpetrator-friendly,’ not as ‘victim-friendly.’ We were only able to catch the foot soldiers, none of the big fish”

“Impunity is very important,” he continued. “Far too many perpetrators have gotten away; but sometimes we have to give perpetrators the chance to leave power scot-free – in order to avoid a greater evil.”

Desmond Tutu speaks and acts with hope, wit, and humility, always well-dosed in his gestures, arguments and, most of all, his plea for justice throughout the world. He stands out as a global voice for humanness, caring, compassion and human solidarity – for Ubuntu.