Desmond Tutu Research Articles

Transformation of the Constitutional Identity in South Africa aft er the Fall of Apartheid

Abstract This article investigates the designed transformation of South African political identity and its constitutional framework as a core aspect of the democratization of South Africa. It compares the racist and exclusive identity of the apartheid state with a redesigned identity of an inclusive and open ‘Rainbow Nation’, a concept coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and spearheaded by Nelson R. Mandela along with the African National Congress. The study considers changes in the legal framework of identity politics, from the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act of 1983 (and the previous apartheid republican Constitution of 1961) through the interim democratic Constitution of 1993 to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996. It discusses the possible significance of the 18 amendments to the act regarding South Africans’ social and political identities, and establishes a complex and detailed portrayal of the republic’s legal framework of identity politics. The study combines legal, political, and cultural analysis of the role of law in formatting social and political identities, using survey results to test its impact on society. In conclusion, the paper considers the effects of post-apartheid identity transformation in South Africa.

Linda-Gail Bekker: Mentorship is critical for anyone in STEM.

Linda-Gail Bekker is a professor, chief executive officer of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, and director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research interests include HIV treatment and prevention and tuberculosis, and she is active in developing community projects to promote education and research. We talked to Linda-Gail about her career, the importance of mentorship, and how rewarding it is to collaborate, mentor, and uplift other scientists.

‘Pastoral and ecclesial madness’ Facing the failure of ‘democratism’ within the current civil turmoil in South Africa

‘Pastoral and ecclesial madness’ Facing the failure of ‘democratism’ within the current civil turmoil in South Africa

Ascendancy of Mass Media in Achieving Gender Equality

For centuries, marginalisation has affected the niches and nooks of the world on a different level. Identities like caste, creed, religion, language, race and gender have been practiced with a hierarchy and hegemony. Women are one of the largest marginalized communities along with LGBTQIA+. OTT platform plays a crucial role in displaying voices from the margins in order to showcase socio-cultural inequality and inhumanity. The present paper deals with the Indian patriarchal mindset that refuses to accept women as a major contributor and creator of society. Accepting all weak gender identities as a part of the main stream is almost like mission impossible. Desmond Tutu’s ‘rainbow colour society’ is a far reaching-goal in India. Thanks to social media of the 21st century for transmitting these minority voices to the public’s attention and awareness. The media of the 21st century has aided a lot in conditioning society’s mindset into accepting an egalitarian society. The present paper deals with marginalized married Indian women’s voices from a film called The Great Indian Kitchen on OTT and a television series based on Manju Kapoor’s novel Married Woman and Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, Namesake. The house wives have been portrayed as searching for identities and are rebellious against the stereotypical roles. The issues of identities of the women protagonists have been powerfully depicted through these channels. The research is based upon qualitative and quantitative data analysis with statistical evidence wherever necessary. The paper is divided into four parts, namely the role of media in the 21st century, issues of identities as a theoretical background, application of the identity issues of Ashima , protagonist of book , Namesake Nimisha, the protagonist, in the film The Great Indian Kitchen and in the tele-series The Married Woman and last but not the least conclusions. This is a study and critique to highlight how the media aids in re-conceptualization of societal norms and traditions for the queer and female community to gain their self-esteem and dignity with special reference to GEM (Gender Empowerment Measure).

Made in the Image of God: Seeing Humanity as God Sees Us

While many within the Christian tradition believe that humanity has been made in the image of God, there are differing views of what happened to that divine image once sin and brokenness entered the world. If we believe that our divine nature has been lost or is something to be attained, it follows that we might easily recognize the image of God in some (such as those we consider “saved”) while having a harder time recognizing God’s image within others, especially those who are different from us. A colleague of mine shared a statement that summarizes the danger of this phenomenon well: “when we fail to recognize someone’s divinity, we fail to recognize their humanity.” Great thinkers and social activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have also stressed the importance of recognizing the divine image that is inherent in all people in order to prevent dehumanization, which leads to injustice and oppression. This paper will explore some of these thoughts in relation to the evolution of St. Augustine’s understanding of what it means to be made in the image of God. By applying Augustine’s three different perspectives on what sin does to our divine image, we will see the consequences of failing to recognize the divinity of others. This reality can show up today in everyday situations such as fearing or distrusting our neighbors, hurting others through attempts to show God’s “love”, and even in atrocities such as treating civilians and children as “collateral damage” in war. When we are truly able to see the image of God in ourselves and each other, we are compelled to genuinely love those who are different from us, including those we believe to be our enemies.

Desmond Tutu's Spirituality of Protest

Abstract: This essay interprets Desmond Mpilo Tutu's practice of protest as a spiritual practice in light of his regular participation in other spiritual practices such as prayer, silence, and Eucharist. Connecting these spiritual practices to his theologies of ubuntu and the imago Dei , I demonstrate that Tutu's life of protest was an expression of his spirituality and that his example challenges sharp distinctions between the "political" and the "spiritual." Rather, spirituality understood in the key of Tutu's ubuntu theology is always already political.

Socio- spiritual approaches towards rehabilitation of the victims of sexual molestation in Zimbabwe: An African pastoral care perspective

Sexual molestation is a common phenomenon in communities globally, particularly in situations of family disintegration and periods of political violence and economic instability that cause migration and displacement. Molestation comes in various forms including sexual harassment, fondling, oral-genital contact, penetration and intercourse which is dehumanizing. This causes the victims to suffer physical, psychological and spiritual problems. Therefore, there is a need to provide a holistic pastoral care approaches that address the problems resulting from molestation. This paper seeks to explore ways in which the victims of sexual molestation in Zimbabwe may be healed spiritually and psychologically and their dignity be restored. It will begin by discussing the challenges that arise due to sexual molestation and propose some pastoral care approaches that promote holistic healing and restoration of the victims. The paper utilizes the theoretical framework of the ubuntu theology of the Nobel laureate the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. His theory helps in the understanding of the role of pastoral care for the victims of sexual molestation in the Zimbabwean context. This is a non-empirical research based on analysing secondary sources of data through a desk-top study approach. The paper contributes to insights on how ubuntu-informed pastoral care practices can promote the restoration of the dignity of the victims of sexual molestation.

Network of International Cooperative Learning Educators and Enthusiasts (NICLEE): Cultivating Global Connections

Desmond Tutu speaks to the fundamental truth that the human species relies on cooperation for its survival. While we may see ourselves as individuals, the reality is that we are all interconnected and our fates are intertwined. This is especially true when it comes to learning and education. We cannot learn in isolation; we need teachers, mentors, peers, and a community that supports us. The act of learning itself is a cooperative process, where we share knowledge and ideas with others to construct deeper understanding. In short, the quote reminds us that we are not alone in this world, and that our success and happiness are tied to the success and happiness of others. It is only through cooperation and collaboration that we can achieve great things and create a better future for all.

Joyful Defiance: Death Does Not Win the Day by Anna Madsen

Reviewed by: Joyful Defiance: Death Does Not Win the Day by Anna Madsen Phil Ruge-Jones Joyful Defiance: Death Does Not Win the Day. By Anna Madsen. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022. 174 pp. This book speaks poignantly to the times we live in. Madsen offers a vision that will speak to any time, but with the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years and the effects of the pandemic, this book cries out as a voice that needs to be heard. She shows how a profound, reflective dive into what is personal can contribute to very public issues. Madsen begins by rooting her reflections in a specific moment of loss that shook her family's life at every level. In 2004, her husband was killed in an accident that also left her son with a traumatic brain injury. As she sat in the funeral service, she found herself in a community, singing familiar words that took on new depth in this crisis, "Were they to take our house, goods, honor, child, or spouse, though life be wrenched away, they cannot win the day." In the death of her beloved, Luther's words connected to a very concrete reality. The rest of the book engages in a theological quest to unpack what "win the day" meant as Madsen sought to rediscover the gift of joy. The titles of the five chapters give a good sense of the themes and flow: The Absence of Lamenting the Absence of God, Joy Comes in the Mourning, Finding Hope When You're Losing Your Grip, Justified for Joy, and Holy Saturday Living. Those familiar with Luther's theology of the cross will recognize something of the trajectory she develops. Her theology joins Luther's in naming "a truth that makes every theologian paying attention gulp" (65). [End Page 237] One of the strengths of this book is the conversation partners she has invited around the table. Many are the usual suspects for theologians of the cross: Martin Luther, Walter Brueggemann, Jürgen Moltmann, and Miroslav Volf. But others are also invited to shape the conversation: Cornel West, Soraya Chemaly, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Toni Morrison. Exchanges she has had with co-conspirators throughout her ministry as a public theologian enrich the dialogue. The result is deepened discourse that offers relevance, reverence, and renewal to the church and the world (the three Rs that guide her theological work at the OMG Center (https://omgcenter.com/). The final chapter witnesses to how her own journey has led her to joyful defiance in the face of real death. We see what each of the concepts she has explored more abstractly looks like as she has lived through her struggle for healing and hope. She ends in a joyful place, "But I can write, with full integrity and honesty, that I can now, almost two decades hence, declare that every moment is sacred, every moment is to be savored, every moment is a possibility to plant a tree, to plant a promise, to plant joyful defiance. … Death is real. … But life, on this eve of whatever tomorrow will bring, is real-er" (165). While her theological and cultural conversation partners add depth to her reflections, in the end the courage with which she charts her own journey makes her claims compelling. Her book is a lively testimony to Luther's great confession, "One becomes a theologian by living, by dying, and by being damned, not by understanding, reading, and speculation." Phil Ruge-Jones Grace Lutheran Church Eau Claire, Wisconsin Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

Science for humanity

This year marks the 175th anniversary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, the publisher of Science). In striving to advance its mission, the organization's theme for its annual meeting (2 to 5 March in Washington, DC), "Science for Humanity," reiterates its commitment to explore and make sense of the world through inquiry, evidence seeking, and discovery. The words of archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu are a reminder that this pursuit must be shared by everyone if it is to serve all of society: "My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together." These words aptly capture the essence of the ties that bind us, which include our shared DNA, our need to bond with others, and our ability to collaborate. Science is intertwined with the human condition and stories of the human experience and is hence the great connector. The more we embrace our common humanity-and science as a unifier-the better we will understand what it means to be human and what it will take to sustain ourselves and our planet.

Climate Apartheid: Challenging Religious Communities to Engage Climate Change and Its Intersecting Issues

Climate change, poverty and racism/xenophobia are interrelated and must be analysed from an intersectional perspective. The late SA Archbishop Desmond Tutu himself coined the term “climate apartheid”, highlighting the fact that “people who are wealthy and have access to enough resources can anticipate and adapt to climate change, while people who are poor and who live in poor countries have less ability to do so” (Mc Carthy 2021). In unpacking the ways in which the undue impacts of climate change rest more heavily on people of colour and women, further arguments are made for the global situation of eco-injustice to be framed within an understanding of systemic environmental apartheid and its intersectional effects. Much like during the period of South African apartheid, many religious communities are silent and complicit in eco injustice due to pietism, passivity, and fundamentalist theology(ies). The call is, therefore, made for religious communities to mobilise against this state of affairs using the lessons learnt in other struggles for justice. Keywords: Ecojustice, Climate apartheid, faith and climate change, race and climate change

Trauma & TYPOI: The Fourth Gospel as Warning Not Example

There are at least four traumatic events that likely lie behind the Gospel of John: (1) Jesus’ death and inaccessibility, (2) the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, (3) the Johannine community’s excommunication from the synagogue, and (4) the loss of the Beloved Disciple. Evidence of all of these traumas can be found in the Gospel itself and, as extant, the Gospel exhibits a number of strategies for addressing these experiences of suffering. Working from Gaston Bachelard’s observations regarding literature produced in response to suffering, this paper outlines the textual evidence for each of these experiences of suffering, notes the responses to them that the Gospel displays, and seeks briefly to evaluate the responses for the TYPOI (patterns/examples/warnings) they provide. In short, the Fourth Gospel employs psychologically attractive, compensatory responses to experiences of loss. However, it deploys in parallel a toxic cocktail of anti-Jewish polemic, condemnation of “the world”, and self-protective, sectarian insularity. Regarding whether the text’s trauma response can be viewed as exemplary for ethically-minded Christians, Desmond Tutu’s 2009 statement, “there are certain parts [of the Bible] which you have to say no to”, is directly applicable, while the warning the text’s example suggests is significant.

Family as a cure.

The phrase “ubuntu,” which means “I am because we are,” was championed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as he led South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the late 1990s. It contrasts starkly with Western philosopher René Descartes’ famous phrase, “I think, therefore I am

GI multisociety strategic plan on environmental sustainability.

GI multisociety strategic plan on environmental sustainability.

Steve Biko’s Black Theology of Liberation from the Perspective of Ubuntu

AbstractThis article seeks to bring Steve Biko’s Black theology of liberation (BTL) into dialogue with Desmond Tutu’s BTL. Using the philosophy of ubuntu as a lens, the article interrogates the differences in Tutu’s and Biko’s use of this approach in their quest for Black liberation. Several scholars have argued that within the context of BTL, Tutu relied more on Christian theology derived from the Bible and tradition, while Biko relied more on Black consciousness to develop their thinking. In this article, I show how they each used ubuntu as a philosophy, even though they used it differently, especially when read in the context of race and reconciliation. The article concludes that Biko’s understanding of Isintu – African culture, African spirituality, and the African philosophy of ubuntu – can help shape Black consciousness philosophy and thus is important, especially for a contemporary BTL.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the Quest for Justice and Reconciliation

Martin Luther King, Jr., Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the Quest for Justice and Reconciliation

Temple and Tutu: speaking truth to power

A comparison of attempts by Archbishops William Temple and Desmond Tutu to shape values within a pluralist society, with a particular focus on Temple’s Christianity and Social Order.

“We are what we are”: Christian identity in conflict with powers and principalities

This article argues that Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s submission to the apartheid government’s Eloff Commission of Inquiry in 1982 is his most important, most thorough theological achievement. It was foundational for the work of the South African Council of Churches of which he was General Secretary. As such, its contribution to ecumenical theology and the work of ecumenical organizations globally remains invaluable. It also still stands as a singularly important testimony in the areas of political responsibility of churches, Christian organizations, and Christians individually. The issues Tutu raises in his submission, Christian identity, of obedience to God, justice, compassion, and solidarity are crucial matters as powerfully relevant today as they were at the time of the inquiry, and they are of universal import.

How to Think about the Climate Crisis: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living, by Graham Parkes

<i>How to Think about the Climate Crisis: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living</i>, by Graham Parkes

A Faith with Which We Can Go Public: The Witness of Desmond Tutu

This article highlights features of the public faith and theology of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who set a distinctive example of participation in the missio Dei. Tutu emphasized God’s inclusive love for the world, which the church is called to proclaim. He taught that God is always more than our best interpretations and representations of God’s revelation to us. Human beings have particular identities, but we are simultaneously also always transcending these identities. Tutu embraced an anthropology of vulnerability, dependency, relationality and ubuntu, which stresses human identity as grounded in our belonging to God and to God’s creatures.