No Future Without Forgiveness

Doubleday, 1999. 1ST. HARDBOUND. LIKE NEW in LIKE NEW jacket. 6TH. 6.75 x 1 x 9.75 inches. pp. 304. Condition Fine copy in fine dust jacket Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (October 5, 1999) Language: English HARDBOUND: 304 pages ISBN-10: 0385496893 ISBN-13: 978-0385496896 Reading age: 14 years and up Item Weight: 1.25 pounds Dimensions: 6.75 x 1 x 9.75 inches. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa has put the spotlight on all of us...In its hearings Desmond Tutu has conveyed our common pain and sorrow, our hope and confidence in the future. --Nelson Mandela. Archbishop Desmond Tutu stands alongside Nelson Mandela as one of the most iconic figures of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. As archbishop of Cape Town throughout the 1980s, Tutu came to symbolize dignified, rational opposition to the iniquities of the apartheid regime, a faithful irreverence for unjust authority that led to his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. In 1995 he took up his greatest challenge, as chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the remarkable yet harrowing attempt by South Africans to come to terms with the gross violations of human rights committed throughout the apartheid era by offering amnesty and forgiveness rather than punishment and dismissal. No Future Without Forgiveness is Tutu's remarkable personal memoir of his time as chair of the commission. It records his insistence of 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 realize our common humanity. Tutu's characteristic humor, resilience, and compassion are evoked 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 the darkest days of apartheid's vicious awfulness when, preaching about God's authority, he was 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 Antjie 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 traumatized people, and those engaging in that crucial task will perhaps bear the brunt themselves...we were, in Henri Nouwen's celebrated phrase, 'wounded healers. ' --Rachel Holmes, Amazon. co. uk