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No Future without Forgiveness is Tutu's remarkable personal memoir of his time as Chair of the Commission. It records his insistence on the need to discover a "third way" in the healing of the national psyche, and his powerful belief that "we can indeed transcend the conflicts of the past, we can hold hands as we realise our common humanity". Yet what is so striking about this memoir is his appreciation of the personal cost that the painful testimony of the Commission caused. He grapples with the theological, political and ethical objections to the Commission, as well as offering an absorbing account of the fall of apartheid, the birth of the Commission, and his own lifelong fight for justice and equality. The book offers uncompromising, often horrific, accounts of atrocities and sickening human brutality, from the emotive cases of Steve Biko and Winnie Mandela to the cases of "the little people": those whose voices are so often drowned out or forgotten in the process of political transformation. Tutu's characteristic humour, resilience and compassion are evoked in this memoir in a way that demonstrates how essential they have been to his unique political style and his ability to get results where all others failed. He recalls during the darkest days of apartheid's "vicious awfulness" when preaching about God's authority being "frequently tempted to whisper in God's ear, 'For goodness sake, why don't You make it more obvious that You are in charge?'"
No Future without Forgiveness could be profitably read alongside Antje Krog's equally compelling Country of My Skull, as it considers the emotional toll that such a process of national soul searching has had upon its participants. As Tutu himself points out, "it is a costly business to try to heal a wounded and traumatised people, and those engaging in that crucial task will perhaps bear the brunt themselves ... we were, in Henri Nouwen's celebrated phrase, 'wounded healers'". No Future without Forgiveness stands as the eloquent testimony of one of South Africa's most admired wounded healers. --Rachel Holmes
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The book is readable, humane, engaging - I've given it 4* not 5* though as it is very much a "Christian" account seen through the eyes of a Christian archbishop. Obviously we would expect that given Tutu's position, but I do personally find something a bit self-righteous (even smug, though not with Tutu who writes with deep humility) in christian accounts..."we know best if only you would see it our way...". Tutu's account of the Israeli position in Middle East affairs described towards the end I found a bit troubling - he mentioned a story of discovering he didn't trust black (Nigerian) pilots on a turbulent flight on account of his South African racial conditioning, yet seemed subsumed by Christian conditioning where the Jews are concerned. I'm not a Jew (or Christian), but have taken time out to see both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian tragedy - and there are two sides Desmond, not one.
Overall though a stirring and touching account of an extraordinary event (the TRC), and I would recommend this book to everyone - above all for its deep and rich understanding of the forgiveness and reconciliation process as a healing of human affairs.
An honest, and as described 'personal account' of this extraordinary process.
Most of the people I'd like to meet are deceased. This perceptive and truly Christian individual is happily still with us.
In this book the former Archbishop of Capetown has given us not only an eye-opening account of the brutalities and intricacies of post-Apartheid justice, but a model for moving beyond the various forms of institutionalized retribution. Pointing out the unworkability of trying and sentencing perpetrators of apartheid, he describes the joys and difficulties of the "truth and reconciliation" approach to justice: the granting of political amnesty to those who make a full confession of their crimes. An additional beauty of the process is its openness to the stories of those who were victimized, many of whom have been willing to pass up the opportunity for legal revenge in order to speak about their sufferings to those who were responsible for them.
Although this amnesty--as opposed to what Tutu calls "amnesia," the denial approach to the past--has not been a perfect solution to the fallout of apartheid, it has offered the world a model of reconciliation at the level of the trans-punishment consciousness of a Gandhi, a Jesus, a Martin Luther King Jr. For that reason alone it bears study by readers who are ready for alternatives to the cycles of retribution that inundate the world even now with ever-widening circles of "moral" warfare and all the rest of the self-justifying brutality that only creates new injustices.
His journey was not an easy one, however, with a solid spiritual base, and an extemporary model of sustained dedication to the indwelling truth in his heart, he was able to lead a nation out of apartheid, and into peace and equality.
His humanness and depth make this book one to refer back to, and his model of spiritual equality for all people one to follow for us all.
Deserves 10 Stars!
Barbara Rose, author of "Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to Being THE ONE" and 'If God Was Like Man'
Editor of inspire! magazine
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