Posted on 05/01/2006 6:57:18 PM PDT by blam
White 'ingratitude' worries Tutu
Archbishop Tutu and Mr de Klerk are both Nobel peace laureates
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said South Africa's white community has not shown enough appreciation of the generosity shown to them by black South Africans.
Ex-President FW de Klerk said in turn that black citizens should be grateful to whites for surrendering power.
Archbishop Tutu headed the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission which began work in April 1996.
In an interview with BBC News, he said the commission failed to engage the white community sufficiently.
He also expressed concern about social inequalities and levels of poverty in South Africa.
'Magnanimity'
Archbishop Tutu was an icon of the struggle against apartheid and led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission through the pain of the healing process in the 1990s.
"We lanced a boil which, had we not done, would have meant that our country would have gone down the tubes."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
He said that under apartheid, black South Africans were the main victims of a political system from which the whites benefited greatly.
"By and large, the white community does not seem to have shown an appreciation for the incredible magnanimity of those who were the major victims of a system from which they [the whites] benefited so much," Archbishop Tutu told the BBC's Peter Biles.
The archbishop expressed concern over instances of "demeaning" poverty in South Africa today.
"I have warned, and I am not the only one who has, that we are sitting on a powder keg," he said.
"It is the obligation of all of us to be trying to do something about it."
Sacrifices
On Sunday, Mr de Klerk admitted in an article in the Sunday Independent newspaper that white rule had been "morally indefensible", but said whites had made sacrifices.
Mr de Klerk, who was president from 1989 to 1994, was South Africa's last white head of state who opened the way to majority rule by releasing political prisoners and lifting the ban on the African National Congress and other organisations.
"Would it not be appropriate for black South Africans also to give more recognition to the contribution whites have made to the new South Africa?" he wrote in the Sunday Independent.
"It required considerable courage... to overcome their reasonable fears and put their trust in their erstwhile enemies," Mr de Klerk wrote.
In another development, an apartheid-era general has released a report commissioned by Mr de Klerk on the involvement of the South African military in clandestine measures to destabilise the country in the early 1990s, the Sunday Independent reports.
The report by General Pierre Steyn is said to identify military and other figures who allegedly plotted violence aimed at hindering the transition to democracy.
'Failing'
Ten years after the Truth Commission began its work, Archbishop Tutu said one of its failings was not being able to engage the white community sufficiently.
A major shortcoming was not persuading senior figures such as former president PW Botha to take part.
The government has indicated that it may, in the near future, prosecute certain individuals who were not granted amnesty by the Truth Commission.
Archbishop Tutu said his concern was that once again it might be the foot soldiers and not the big fish that were targeted.
Where did I say that?
And volatile compared to what? Certainly not to any other country in Africa. Certainly not to any country (including my own) in the Middle East.
Lighten up,Francis.
Aren't the streets of the cities warzones?
It almost sounds like like the good bishop thinks the whites should be groveling for their very lives.
Francis?
It reads like White Southern pols in the '50s, "You negras ought to be showing us s'more gratitude fer all what we do fer ya !"
In truth, it wasn't the blacks who suffered most from apartheid, it was the coloreds, whose lot is still to reside at the bottom of the social ladder there. Mr. Tutu might wish to examine the beam in his own eye before criticizing the mote in others'. IMHO, of course.
Gang rape of baby girls is an underappreciated fixture of the new South Africa./sarcasm
No. It's actually doing very well -- 5% growth last year.
Aren't the streets of the cities warzones?
Crime is a serious problem, but it's mostly limited to the townships and Johannesburg.
Desmond Tutu is an immigrant?
That was/is Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) where they're now starving.
My advice to anyone - anyone - white or black, get out now while the getting is good. The rape, murder and pillage you have witnessed so far is only prologue to that which is to come. I'd further hope than these people, survivors of their freedom's loss, would come to America for the final stand of civilization against the barbarism of age.
Forgive me if this is out of line, but have you ever been to South Africa?
Then we need to use our freedoms back against them.
Local politician Nomvula Mokanyane says that under apartheid, African men were stripped of power and prestige. Now they take their revenge on women, and on tiny children.Wonder how long that excuse will work.
See, if we shoot across the border, into mexico, then we haven't broken any Mexican laws, because of course the laws of an adjacent nation don't count, when the people of the adjacent nation don't want them to.
Right?
Symmetry.
"South Africa's GDP is growing at 5% per year. Not China, but hardly a descent into hell."
Isn't South Africa the country where they rape babies with the belief it will cure aids?
I once worked with several people from south africa, they loved the country but were afraid for their lives.
See my link above. It's not the only country, but it's one of them.
No. I only know what I have read in the press and the coverage from the transfer of power - none too smooth, by my lights, with 'justice' gangs and the like.
Dunno, but my friend, who worked in S.A. in the 70s, told me that most blacks came there after the whites settled the country. Before the white man came, there were very few blacks but they came in droves by being attracted to the prosperous activity the whites generated.
It would be interesting to find out when Tutu's family came to live in South Africa. It could very well be that DeKlerk's family predated his.
Isn't America the country where kids shoot up schools and a pluralities twice elected a rapist President? If you want to sum up countries with inane media sound bites, we can go all night.
That's what I thought. It's funny how otherwise reasonable conservatives, who wouldn't believe what they read in the press about their own country's politics, immediately believe everything they read about another country's.
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