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KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 1 JOHN SHATTUCK: Good evening and welcome to the John F. Kennedy Library. I’m
John Shattuck, the CEO of the Kennedy Library Foundation. And on behalf of myself,
our Board of Directors, many of whom are here tonight, and our Library Director, Tom
Putnam, I want to thank all of you for coming from neighborhoods and communities
across our cities, no doubt battling the Red Sox traffic on the way, to hear from the
distinguished leaders on our stage.
Some of you may remember that extraordinary evening 17 years ago, when Nelson
Mandela came to the Kennedy Library after his release from Robben Island Prison.
Tonight we will hear from three heroes of that great struggle waged by President
Mandela and countless others over many decades for freedom and justice in South Africa.
We are proud to honor each of our guests as Distinguished Visitors to President
Kennedy’s Library.
I want to thank the generous supporters of our Distinguished Visitor program: Boston
Capital, the Corcoran Jennison companies, and Raytheon, along with our lead forum
sponsor Bank of America, as well as the Lowell Institute, the Boston Foundation, and our
media sponsors, the Boston Globe, NECN, and WBUR, which broadcasts all of these
forums on Sunday evenings.
Forty-one years ago, a young United States Senator visited South Africa. In his speeches
on that trip, the Senator echoed a call that had been sounded by his brother five years
earlier in his Inaugural Address-- President Kennedy’s famous call for a global alliance to
bear the burden of a long twilight struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny,
poverty, disease, and war itself.
And at the University of Capetown on June 4, 1966, Robert Kennedy delivered one of his
most famous speeches, riveting a vast student audience in a country that was in the grip
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 2 of the totalitarian evil of apartheid. Let’s listen to a portion of that speech in this audio
clip from the archives of the Kennedy Library.
[audio clip]
[applause]
JOHN SHATTUCK: Robert Kennedy had been invited to deliver that speech by the
National Union of South African Students. Five days before the Senator was due to arrive
in South Africa, the president of the student union was banned by the government for
anti-apartheid advocacy, so it fell to the vice president to take over his duties. When
Robert Kennedy arrived in Cape Town, the situation faced by that young student leader
was filled with tension. “The banning terrified me,” she later told Robert Kennedy’s
biographer. “I was 20 years old, thinking about the threat of no work, no passport, and no
university.” She was on stage when Robert Kennedy delivered his speech and then
traveled with him all over South Africa, including his visits to Soweto and other black
townships, and of course she’s here with us tonight, our own Chief Justice of
Massachusetts, Margaret Marshall.
[applause]
In the 41 years since Robert Kennedy visited South Africa, the country, of course, has
been transformed, and the three distinguished speakers on our stage, in different ways,
have played a key part in that transformation. Let me say that I’m sure this is the first
time the stage of the Kennedy Library has ever been graced simultaneously by an
Archbishop, a Chief Prosecutor, and a Chief Justice. And I want to thank each of you by
saying that it’s an enormous honor to have you, personally, and with those extraordinary
titles. Bishop Tutu, you are one of the greatest human rights heroes of our time. During
the long--
[applause]
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 3 During those long years that Nelson Mandela was in prison, you constantly and
courageously spoke out against the apartheid regime. When you were awarded the Nobel
Prize in 1984, you had come to represent, in the words of the Nobel Committee, “all the
individuals and groups in South Africa who, with their concern for human dignity,
fraternity, and democracy, incite the admiration of the world.”
More than any other person during this time, Archbishop Tutu, through his tireless
campaigning, shined a global spotlight on the evils of apartheid and mobilized the world
to confront its enforcers. I first met him when he came to Harvard in the 1980s to urge
the university to begin divesting its South African stocks. And he was indeed very
persistent on that subject, as he should have been.
A decade later, the apartheid regime had fallen and Nelson Mandela had been elected
president. Bishop Tutu created the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
the institution that I believe more than any other came to symbolize the extraordinary,
non-violent revolution that was sweeping the country. As the U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State for Human Rights, I was privileged to be invited to observe the Commission’s work
in its early hearings, and I watched in awe as Bishop Tutu transformed high school
gymnasiums and municipal auditoriums into centers of truth and justice and
reconciliation across the new South Africa.
I’ve known and admired Richard Goldstone since 1994, when I was involved in his
appointment as the first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for
Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Justice Goldstone had been appointed by President
Mandela to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and like Bishop Tutu, he was
instrumental in shaping the non-violent course of the South African revolution. He made
his mark as the chair of the national commission established in 1991 to investigate
political violence and intimidation. It became known as the Goldstone Commission, not
surprisingly. It played a crucial role in the transformation of South Africa by condemning
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 4 the violence of the apartheid regime, and in many ways, it paved the way for South
Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Justice Goldstone, you have been an extraordinary voice for justice in your own country
and around the world, and it was a great privilege to work with you during that struggle
for justice in Rwanda and Bosnia.
[applause]
Margaret Marshall, our distinguished Chief Justice, first came to the United States as an
American Field Service high school exchange student in 1962. The civil rights movement
was in full force, and when she returned to South Africa to enter university a year later,
she joined the anti-apartheid student movement. Over the next five years, she became a
leader in the movement, and served as president of the National Union of South African
students.
In 1968, she came back to the United States to attend law school and remained to become
a U.S. citizen, a distinguished lawyer, and a human rights advocate. In the early 1990s, I
had the privilege of serving with her as a colleague and fellow vice president at Harvard.
She was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1996, and was named
Chief Justice in 1999, where she has been a leader on the rule of law and a champion of
the rights of all citizens.
[applause]
And we are very honored to have as the moderator of tonight’s forum one of the most
powerful and distinguished academic voices in America. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the
W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities at Harvard, and Director the W.E.B. Du Bois
Institute. He is general editor of the monumental Norton Anthology of African American
Literature, and co-editor of the even more monumental work Africana: The Encyclopedia
of the African and African American Experience. Professor Gates has been showered
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 5 with honors, including a MacArthur Genius Award and scores of honorary degrees, and
Time Magazine in 1997 named him one of the 25 most influential Americans.
So please join me in welcoming to the stage of the Kennedy Library for a discussion,
following which we will take written questions from the audience, Bishop Desmond
Tutu, Justice Richard Goldstone, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, and Professor Henry
Louis Gates.
[applause]
HENRY LOUS GATES, JR: Thank you, John. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Isn’t
this amazing? I can’t believe it. I mean, give it up for these three people. Give it up!
[applause]
John asked me a few months ago, would I find the time to moderate? I said, “Are you
kidding? I would cancel anything in order to be here.” I’ve been by Archbishop Tutu’s
house in Soweto, but he wasn’t home. But I’d never had the pleasure of meeting him, and
it’s just a great honor, lady and gentlemen, for me to be here, and ladies and gentlemen.
So this is our format: we are going to have a conversation, about an hour. And you all, as
John said, will write written questions, and they will adjudicate among your various
questions and present them. I’m going to ask each person a specific question. We’ll start
with Justice Marshall and then go around, do that a couple of times. I’ll ask them all a
general question, and then we’ll open it up, okay? That’s our format.
MARGARET MARSHALL: You haven’t told them we don’t know the questions yet.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: They don’t know the questions. They don’t know the
questions. Except for Justice Marshall, who insisted that I not tell anybody that.
[laughter]
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 6
Justice Marshall, you made history in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as the first
woman chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, and history in the United States as the
author of Goodridge v. Department of Health, the decision that legalized gay marriage in
the Commonwealth.
In full disclosure, you and I go back a long way, at least to 1991, when I arrived at
Harvard University. Even further, unbeknownst to you and to him, your husband, the
former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, was held up to me by my mentor at
Yale, John Morton Blum, the great American historian, as a journalist whose statute to
which I could aspire. And he’s been a hero of mine since my junior year. I’d read his
syndicated columns in the Cumberland, Maryland, newspaper.
MARGARET MARSHALL: When was that?
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Junior year, 1967.
MARGARET MARSHALL: Oh, you’ve known him longer than I have. [laughter]
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes, but you know him better than I do.
MARGARET MARSHALL: I’m not so sure.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: When Nelson Mandela came to Harvard University, our
dear president, Neil Rudenstine, selected the two of us to speak on that glorious occasion.
So ladies and gentlemen, the Chief Justice and I go back a long way. But that said, Justice
Marshall, do you ever imagine what your career would have been had you stayed in
South Africa? And what contributions might you have made to the new South Africa’s
judicial system on the ground? And what contributions, possibly, can you make to it from
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 7 here?
MARGARET MARSHALL: I knew I hadn’t anticipated the questions. People stay and
people leave, and I think that for those of us who left, there’s an enormous amount of
pain, and for the people who stayed, there was even greater pain. The decision has never
been an easy one for any people who move anywhere. I can’t help listening to Senator
Kennedy’s words, Senator Robert Kennedy’s words, without a feeling of, “Well, what
would have happened?” That said, the United States is a great country, and I have been
able to do things in this country that I think I would not have been able to do in South
Africa, understanding the enormous privileges of being white.
The journey has been a long and difficult one, and of course, when President Mandela
and all of the people who have been incarcerated for so long were released from South
Africa, there was an opportunity to return. But this is my home. But I could not have
done the things that I’ve done in this country were it not for my experiences in South
Africa.
The time of Senator Kennedy’s speech, as I’ve said on a number of occasions, was a
peculiarly mean and difficult time in South Africa. The mid-1960s had followed
immediately upon the banning of all of the major political parties: the Africa National
Congress, the Pan-African Congress, the Communist Party. Most of the leaders were
either in prison, banned, in exile. There was a soreness about everything. In looking up
the Archbishop’s resume, I reminded myself that there had never been a black Anglican
bishop in South Africa, and there had never been a black Archbishop in South Africa. It
was many years before that was to happen.
The decision to leave was difficult, and I certainly didn’t think I was leaving forever. And
if you had told me 1) that I would be in the United States, 2) that I would be a lawyer-- I
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 8 never thought I’d be a lawyer, 3) that I would be a justice, and 4) that I would be the chief
justice of the oldest court in the United States, I would not have believed it.
What contributions can one make? I think the great struggle for human freedom is an
international struggle, and all that is asked of each of us is that we do what we can
wherever we happen to be. Many struggles have been carried out all over the world.
South Africa, of course, in many ways-- I mean, how many people know personally two
Nobel Peace Prize winners, Archbishop Tutu and the great Chief Justice Albert Lutuli,
another Nobel Peace Prize winner from South Africa? It’s a difficult question, as you can
hear, yes, I’m sliding all over the place. But I hope in some ways, that in some small
sense, that I’ve been able to make a difference.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Thank you for your honesty. You’ve made an enormous
difference, an enormous difference. [applause] And you have an enormous amount of
courage on the bench and off the bench.
Justice Goldstone, you stayed in South Africa, serving for nine years as a justice on the
Constitutional Court. And you’ve become renowned for your work in international
human rights in hot spots such as the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Iraq,
Argentina, not to mention South Africa itself.
My first question for you is about the criminal and civil justice systems in post-apartheid
South Africa. How have they and the legal profession itself changed since the end of
apartheid, and does justice prevail equally for blacks and whites since the end of
apartheid?
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well, we’re in the middle of a huge transformation in
South Africa. At the end of apartheid, in 1994, there were approximately 200 Superior
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 9 Court judges in our country. All but two were white, and all but about three or four were
men. And I always refer to it as a “pale, male bench.”
MARGARET MARSHALL: We know something about that.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: So our judiciary didn’t represent the true majorities in our
country: black South Africans and women. And that had to be transformed. And it wasn’t
easy, for a number of reasons. First, the apartheid had made it difficult for black lawyers
to emerge. They did, and there were a few hundred, but they were a very small proportion
of the lawyers in our country. They didn’t qualify for the bench during the apartheid era.
There were not many women senior practitioners who were ready to be appointed to the
bench because of gender discrimination in our country. And hardly any black women,
because they suffered both ways.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Double discrimination.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Double whammy. And it was realized by President
Mandela and his government, and the judges themselves, that that had to change. One of
the difficulties was that young black lawyers were offered tremendous positions in the
private sector. I mean who could blame them for giving up the opportunity of earning a
good living rather than becoming judges and accepting second-best and even third-best in
the financial area? So there was huge competition for young black lawyers immediately,
and still today in the post-apartheid South Africa.
But that notwithstanding, we’ve done pretty well. About 40% of the judiciary is now
black, and about 36% of the judiciary is now women, female. That’s in a period of 13
years. We have the first ever black African Chief Justice, Pius Langa, Deputy Chief
Justice, Dikgang Moseneke, wonderful black lawyer. The Constitutional Court, our
highest court, when it began in 1994, of the original 11 justices, we were seven white and
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 10 four black, two women. Today, I’m happy to say, it consists of the same 11 number.
Eight black, three white, three women. Not enough women, but the racial bias has been
reversed.
As far as justice is concerned, we don’t have equal justice yet. The economics of our
society don’t allow it. Many, many impecunious black accused don’t have adequate
representation. We can’t afford the legal aid that we need. But steps are being taken, and
that’s changing. I think it’s really important that the number of black judges on the bench
make a difference to our society. It’s a very exciting change. We’re certainly not there
yet, but I think we’re getting there pretty quickly.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Fair enough. Thank you. Archbishop Tutu.
[applause]
Archbishop Tutu, as the bishop of Johannesburg, you won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984,
for your work against apartheid. And since then, you’ve had a place on the world stage as
a voice of reason, peace, reconciliation. But you’ve remained grounded in the reality of
the new South Africa as well.
So my first question to you is of a somewhat local nature: do you think South Africa is
ready for 2010, when it hosts the World Cup? I ask because so much of the news we hear
in the West coming out of South Africa today is about crime and unrest, of course. Two
weeks ago there was the carjacking and murder of Lucky Dube, and you know Lucky
Dube, South Africa’s most famous reggae singer, an international star--
MARGARET MARSHALL: He comes from my hometown.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: I did not know that, from Margie’s home, too. And even
a national symbol. And just today in the New York Times, as I’m sure you all saw, we
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 11 were treated to a bemused “Johannesburg Journal” about the chaotic system of obtaining
a driver’s license in South Africa. New stadiums and hotels are being built, the airport’s
being expanded. But are these big tourism efforts enough to counteract the high crime
advisories and warnings for caution that Western governments regularly issue? And the
bigger question, Archbishop, of course, is what can be done to make South Africa safer,
not just for foreign tourists, but for its own good, hard-working citizens?
DESMOND TUTU: Yeah. Thank you, it’s wonderful to be here. There are days when I
am nice, and there are days where I am not so nice. I have to work out how I should
answer. [laughter] I’ve sometimes been amazed at how Westerners can get quite hoity-
toity. [laughter, applause] Talked out over all the wonderful things they’ve been able to
do, and then zero in on a country that has been free for 13 years--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Thirteen only--
DESMOND TUTU: Thirteen years. And now when I am not so friendly, [laughter] I
say, “Well, what did Katrina show of this country?”
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: That’s right. Racism.
DESMOND TUTU: And I can also say if I wanted to write about Boston, I could write
about the violence affecting all these sorts coming away from playing basketball. I could
do that, but I won’t. [laughter] I am, I think, we all are greatly exercised by the things that
you mention. And yet we also have to be realistic and say, isn’t it incredible that given
our incidents that we should have the kind of stability we have in South Africa, you
know?
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 12 A few years ago, when I became Archbishop, it was a crime, a crime, for me, newly
elected Archbishop, to live in my official residence, because my official residence was in
a white area, so-called. Now you can live anywhere that you can afford.
I think a lot of us are pained by the fact that there is so much violence, although I think
too that we don’t help our own case in that we have tended to sensationalize it. If you
read a South African newspaper, and there’s been a hijacking, as sure as anything it’s
going to be on the front page. It’s going to be banner headlines, something that your
papers would tend to put on page five or six is on our front page. And that builds up a
particular kind of atmosphere. But we’ve also got to be saying, you know, we’re
supposed to make up for the deficits of apartheid. Apartheid damaged not just South
Africa, but it damaged the front line states as well.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Absolutely.
DESMOND TUTU: And many of us have muted-- We’ve said, Western Europe was on
its knees after World War II. And this country showed an incredible--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Generosity.
DESMOND TUTU: Generosity with the Marshall Plan, and we’re saying that apartheid
has devastated Southern Africa in much the same kind of way, and a good case could be
made for a kind of Marshall Plan. So you have a government, therefore, that is trying to
make up: it’s in education, it’s in health, it’s in housing. I mean, you know the apartheid
government, quite deliberately, would not build houses for blacks in what they called
white South Africa.
So it’s not surprising now that when influx control has gone, you get this influx of
people, and a horrendous feature of our country is the shacks, the so-called informal
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 13 settlements, that there is a huge deficit in housing. You have a government that is trying
to make up for that deficit, but it also is having to deal with the contemporary needs of its
people. And I would say we haven’t-- Let me put it this way, things could have been a
great deal better, but certainly we have been a great deal worse.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes. Fair enough. [applause] Thank you, Archbishop.
Justice Marshall--
MARGARET MARSHALL: Can I just add a--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: You may--
MARGARET MARSHALL: --add a coda to that? At the height of the busing crisis in
Boston, I used to get letters from my mother in South Africa, saying, “Are you sure it is
safe to live in Boston?” And I think part of that is of course what she heard about Boston
was the violence in Boston.
But I do want to follow up the Archbishop’s comment. It pains me a great deal, because
you heard how much I love this country. But I get asked so many questions about the
future of South Africa that seem to me to presume that of course the majority of the
government, the majority of the people, happen to be blacks, that there’s an assumption
that they cannot operate a modern, industrial, highly sophisticated state.
Now how do I pinpoint that? First of all, if I see one more report talking about the black
majority government-- We have a majority government, we don’t talk about how in the
United States we have a white majority government, although maybe we should begin to
do that too. We have a majority government. [applause]
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 14 HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Some of us do. [laughter]
MARGARET MARSHALL: A democratic government. The Archbishop talked about
the enormous injustices in South Africa. South Africa is one of the wealthiest, richest-- It
has more minerals and wealth, all of which is concentrated in the hands of a very, very,
very small population. We have a hard time with the dissolution of wealth in this country,
and we’ve been doing it for hundreds of years.
I must say my phone rings several times a semester from some worried parent who says,
“My child has been offered a scholarship or fellowship to go and work for Justice
Goldstone at the Constitutional Court, or to go and be an intern for the Archbishop in
Cape Town. Is it safe to send my child?” Well of course that’s an enormous responsibility
for me. But basically, I say, “Send your child.” You have to be careful. You shouldn’t be
walking around any city at four o’clock in the morning, and you shouldn’t be jogging
along the Charles River, and so my sense is-- Of course there are many adjustment
problems, but can the Games come off? You bet they can come off. I can say that; I’m
not even there.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Well, Justice Marshall, as a student at Wits, you led the
student organization, as John said, the National Union of South African Students. A
powerful force of anti-apartheid activism in the ‘60s. In fact, your leadership made you a
target of the opposing side. And the threats against you propelled, in part, your migration
to the United States.
About your opposition to apartheid, you said, “There was no access to justice in South
Africa. There were a few courageous barristers who agreed to represent people charged
with political crimes. But,” you continued, “by and large, if you were a black South
African, you had no justice. The death penalty continuism was imposed in vastly
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 15 disproportionate numbers. Many of the offenses were applicable to black South Africans
only.”
Now the issue of fairness in sentencing, and disproportionate numbers of black men on
death row in the United States, are questions that have been very much before us. So I
ask you: what connections do you see between this systemic inequality in the old South
African judicial system and many of the unwritten inequalities that still exist in the
American judicial system?
MARGARET MARSHALL: I would say that one of the most significant challenges
facing this society, of which certainly the imposition of the death penalty is its most
extreme form, but of the vast incarceration rates for extraordinarily long periods of time,
of populations in this country, we are so far afield of most countries we think of as peers,
in terms of incarceration rates. And by far, the greatest impact of those incarcerations
rates, as I don’t have to tell this audience, falls on young black men who in
disproportionate numbers are incarcerated.
Let me give you just one example, in terms of sentencing in Massachusetts, which
doesn’t have the death penalty, so I am not confronted with the kinds of issues that
confront my colleagues in other states and in the federal courts. We have, as you know,
as part of our sentencing in drug cases enhanced sentences for arrests, indictments where
somebody is dealing or selling drugs within a school zone. It is not possible to be outside
a school zone in the city of Boston. It is quite easy to be outside a school zone in Newton
or Wellesley or Woburn, and I’m talking here to a Massachusetts audience, but I’m
essentially talking about the suburbs of Boston and out and beyond.
The Sentencing Commission in Massachusetts has shown, without a doubt, holding every
other statistic for age, for crime, for the number of crimes committed, for criminal
history, that the greatest impact of that falls on young black males.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 16
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Without a doubt.
MARGARET MARSHALL: Without a doubt. If we were simply to amend that piece
of the sentencing rules, we would most immediately have an impact on the racial
disparity of who’s being incarcerated and for how long. Now why? That is maybe the
point of your question. Well first of all, we take the vote away from people who are
incarcerated. And second of all, let me answer this way, and again it’s to this audience.
I was having a conversation a couple of years ago with a friend. Actually, a prosecutor,
white male. We were talking about how to get to Martha’s Vineyard on a hot Friday
afternoon when the Southeast Expressway is bumper to bumper.
I said, “I just cut through Blue Hill Avenue.” Blue Hill Avenue, for our guests, runs right
down through the center of Dorchester and Roxbury, the black areas of Boston. And he
looked at me and he said, “It’s not safe for you to drive down Blue Hill Avenue.” When I
was in South Africa, I was told that it wasn’t safe to drive into Soweto. So there are some
parallels. Does that mean that people are deliberately malicious? No, I think there is what
I refer to as anthropological blindness. What you don’t see, you don’t care about. Now
how don’t you see? How can you not see? Of course you can see; the question is: are you
willing to see?
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes.
MARGARET MARSHALL: And how you help people to see, I think, is one of the
greatest challenges. I lived in South Africa and I know this is true for Justice Goldstone,
that until I went to university, I lived in a tiny village, Newcastle, surrounded by black
South Africans. And yet I knew nothing about their lives. One of the things I find most
interesting is to meet black South Africans who are my age who come from the same
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 17 village. We talk about the same people, the person who ran the general store, who
operated the shoe…
It’s painful, because people that I knew and loved as my uncles and… The view is very
different from the other side. I think that we in the United States have much to learn,
much to learn from what happened in South Africa, and the one thing we can learn is how
do you see when it’s right in front of you?
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Absolutely. Half of all male prisoners, Archbishop, in
the United States are black. Half of the two million prisoners are black, or one million
black men. Seventy percent of all black children are born out of wedlock in the United
States. And we don’t see this. We don’t see the class divide even within the African
American community.
We can get a rally of black political leaders for an instance of anti-black racism in two
seconds. But to get a rally-- Can you imagine Jesse or Al Sharpton getting a rally to
protest the out of wedlock birthrate in the United States? Or the incarceration rate? It just
doesn’t sell. It just doesn’t sell, and we don’t see it and we’re not doing very much to
clean up our own house.
Justice Goldstone, South Africa is now in the middle of a contentious succession battle.
Thabo Mbeki, swearing to step down after the second term ends in 2009, but trying to
retain control of the ANC, which seems increasingly unlikely at this point, from what I
understand at least, as an outsider. He is embroiled in scandals involving Jacob Zuma, his
chief rival for ANC leadership and a rival for the candidacy. The police commissioner
and the president of Interpol, Jackie Selebi, and the possibly politically-motivated
dismissal of South Africa’s top prosecutor, Vusi Pikoli. What I’d like you to comment
on, is how you think the young nascent democracy of South Africa will weather this
succession storm. Is South African democracy in danger of destabilization? Or are there
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 18 checks in place, constitutional checks, that ensure stability and continuity?
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well, I hesitate to comment on the rights and wrongs of the
issues you’ve raised. They’re obviously of concern. They are of concern to all South
Africans, and they are tremendously controversial. But that’s a good thing, and that’s part
of what a democracy is about, that these issues are debated openly in the media. Judges,
including the chief justice, are questioned on some of these issues involving the
allegations made against one of our senior judges, the chief justice of the Cape Provincial
Supreme Court. But I’m confident that we’ll weather these and other storms because we
have embraced democracy.
There is open discussion. We do have an absolutely free media. It’s criticized, as the
media is in all democracies, but we have a good constitution. And what gives me
confidence too is that it was the constitution that was predominantly written by and for
the African National Congress. It’s a constitution that has been embraced by the majority
of our people. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always been a little bit bemused at this fear
that some, particularly some white South Africans, have about the African National
Congress giving a two-thirds majority. Because they would again be entitled easily to
amend the constitution. They wanted two-thirds majority, and there haven’t been any
fundamental amendments to the constitution.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: That’s right.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: I don’t believe there are going to be, on any fundamental
issues. As long as the democracy is working, I think we’re going to have problems. Every
country has problems, I’ll even tell you that. But I feel really confident that we are going
to weather it because we have a constitution that’s respected. Respected by the
government, respected by the legislature, and it’s really strictly enforced by the judges.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 19 HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: I’d hoped that you would answer in that way. Archbishop
Tutu: following on the question addressed by Justice Goldstone, Archbishop, I have
questions about two African leaders. Thabo Mbeki, and Zimbabwe’s apparently
immovable force, Robert Mugabe.
First, can you assess Mbeki’s legacy as president? In the United States, Mbeki’s political
scandals are known only to close followers of African news. Here he is best known for
what was represented as his stubborn, stubborn rejection of western science’s claims
about HIV/AIDS virus. He’s done a great job with the South African economy, it seems
to this outsider. What do you make of him at home from the ground up?
And for Mugabe, why are other African leaders so apparently timid in their public
criticism of Mugabe? What he is doing to the people of Zimbabwe seems to fly in the
face of the principled form of government called for by groups such as the new
Partnership for Africa’s Development.
DESMOND TUTU: I think many of us would share your chagrin, your dismay at the
peculiar views that our president had with regard to HIV and AIDS. And I think that
many of us would also say that there are people who have died who shouldn’t have died.
If we would have more orthodox, more conventional policy in place…
Mercifully now, the president has handed over control of that side of their policies to a
body that is headed by the deputy president. She’s a very smart, very personable,
objective individual, and the policies that they have put in place are supported for
instance by a very activist group, the Treatment Action Committee, who for a very long
time were knocking heads with government. So we have turned a corner there.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Thank God.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 20 DESMOND TUTU: Thank God, yes. But still does not make up for the mess-up we
made before this new policy was in place. Thabo? He had a very difficult act to follow.
[laughter] To succeed Nelson Mandela, gee whiz, [laughter] is the last thing anyone
would want on their plate, I think.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: It’s like following you as Archbishop. [laughter]
DESMOND TUTU: I was very thrilled when, very soon after Thabo took over, people
said, “How does it feel to try to fill the shoes of a colossus such as Nelson Mandela?”
And he was very good in his response. He said, “What? He has such ugly shoes.”
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: That is a great answer.
DESMOND TUTU: And I thought he was going to move in that kind of direction. He’s
been important for many of the peace initiatives on the continent. We’ve got to give him
credit for that. I think he had a big problem with President Mugabe. President Mugabe
was our star turn for a very, very long time. I think in many ways, deservedly so. Very
debonair, very well-spoken. Quite erudite, actually.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: And a staunch freedom fighter.
DESMOND TUTU: Yeah! And you see, it’s Africa. President Mugabe possibly would
be able to handle, I’m not sure that he did, would handle the fact that an old man comes
out of jail, and when previously he used to be center stage.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 21 DESMOND TUTU: The media, with no subtlety at all, dumped him like he was a hot
potato, and “Oh, death to this old man.” Now you got to be a very strong human being to
deal with that. I don’t know that it didn’t unhinge him.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Hmm.
DESMOND TUTU: So Thabo comes and he’s younger. He’s really had a tough road to
hoe, because President Mugabe could say, “I’m a freedom fighter, I’ve been in jail.”
Thabo has not been in jail, so he had very, very, many disadvantages. But the age thing
was quite crucial as well. President Mugabe could dismiss him--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: “Small boy.”
DESMOND TUTU: Yeah. “You are just a whipper-snapper.” So there was that
inhibition. I did speak to him about-- There was a time when Time Magazine said he was
one of the hundred most influential people. And on that particular occasion, I said to him,
“You know, you just scored an A, had it not been for two things.” And before I said it, he
said, “Yes. AIDS and Zimbabwe.” He was aware of this. I again have been deeply
distressed at the fact that African leaders have not been more forthright in confronting
President Mugabe. But again, they have the inhibition of-- If Westerners come along and
pontificate about what you should be doing, it doesn’t sit easily with people.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: It seems like neocolonialism.
DESMOND TUTU: You’re taking your orders from those guys again. And so they
bunch up together and say, “We have a common enemy.” I have been saying that we
have probably got to look at something that tourists would not be too happy about. I’ve
been saying that we probably ought to be looking at the possibility of resort lending for
President Mugabe. Now I know that they really get hot under the collar about impunity
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 22 and all of that kind of—And I say, “Well, you know, in some of these things, it’s not a
question of a choice between right and wrong, it is a choice between two evils. Which is
the lesser: letting this guy go, or letting him continue and have him do what he’s doing to
the people?” It is horrendous!
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: It is horrendous. It is a blight on the face of the continent.
DESMOND TUTU: Oh.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: May I just add one brush on what the Archbishop has said?
I’m disappointed that President Mbeki hasn’t spoken out, for the last number of years,
strongly against what has happened in Zimbabwe. [applause] Let me say that the reason
is not because I believe that it would have made a difference in Zimbabwe. Probably not.
I think he owed it to our own nation to say, “This is not the way things should be done.”
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: “This is not democratic, this is not the way we are going to
go.” I think that’s a lost opportunity.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Thank you. I have one more question for each, and then
we will open it up to your written questions here. Justice Marshall, good African
leadership is in the news. Yesterday, in fact, it was announced that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf,
of Liberia, the first woman elected president of an African nation, was awarded the
United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. [applause] Last week, Justice Marshall, the
former president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, well-known for running a good
ship, stepping down from office in a timely fashion, won the inaugural $5 million Mo
Ibrahim Award for African Leadership.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 23 Justice Marshall, do you think that such a prize can encourage other leaders on the
continent to do their jobs according to the rule of law? [laughter] And to buck the trend of
clinging to the trappings of power? Or, as one critic of the prize suggested in the lively,
very lively South African press - which I happen to love - this past weekend, is the Mo
Ibrahim Prize essentially a bribe to leaders of any moral stature to serve the best interests
of their people?
I am particularly interested in your thoughts on this, Justice Marshall, because of your
thinking that a well-functioning court needs to follow business-model principles, an
intriguing idea from you, my friend. What do you think of the effects of this kind of
rewards system, as it were, on African leadership?
MARGARET MARSHALL: You must have spoken to my husband. Of course the
problem that I have in my home is that every time I take a job, I cut my pay by 80%. I
think if you told us there was a $5 million prize-- I have no idea, Skip. I do want to
follow up though, on some of the discussions about South Africa.
Maybe because I am a United States citizen, I go back to the country of my birth, which
was so evil, so evil. I see the vibrant political leadership. I mean, you ask about Thabo
Mbeki. Many people here know what a great admirer I am of John Adams. John Adams
followed George Washington. He was despised. The only building named after John
Adams is our John Adams Courthouse. This is in the United States of America, and oh,
by the way--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: That’s cold, that’s cold.
MARGARET MARSHALL: He wrote this great constitution on which the United
States Constitution is based, and having the separation of powers, and having
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 24 independent judges, and having a charter of rights. So, for me, South Africa is just
miraculous. I mean this is in 15 years!
The other thing I want to say about Richard, the comment about what makes it function.
Richard touched upon the fact that the executive branch and the legislative branch, in
these very difficult times, are actually obeying court orders. Do not take that for granted,
people. Do not take that for granted. I have wonderful comments from President
Mandela, but the first time that Justice Goldstone and his colleagues-- I mean, who were
these eleven people? How many white boys were there on that court, Richard? Seven?
You know, they hand-placed on Mandela, a stunning political defeat to the African
National Congress. President Mandela, instead of doing what we would think any
“mutable” democracy-- Think about what’s happening in some of the other countries in
Eastern Europe and so on that don’t always obey judges orders. President Mandela steps
out onto the steps of Parliament and he says, “Today is a great day for South Africa. The
Constitutional Court has spoken. We can all be proud of the Constitutional Court.” And
he sets the country on a path. President Mbeki, whatever you may think about his views
on HIV, when the Constitutional Court issued an order saying you must distribute certain
drugs to pregnant women who had AIDS--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: He did it.
MARGARET MARSHALL: He obeyed the order. Now, excuse me. Have any of you
heard Justice Wyatt talk about what the original reaction was when the United States
Supreme Court started talking? I mean, excuse me. It took a long time before people in
the United States were obeying what the United States Supreme Court said.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Absolutely.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 25 MARGARET MARSHALL: There are whole Cherokee nations that would have a view
about that. The people in Brown vs. Board of Education. This is a fabulous success, an
absolutely fabulous success and it didn’t come easily.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: No, it didn’t.
MARGARET MARSHALL: And you couldn’t take it for granted. It is a remarkable
society.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: I think it is a miracle.
MARGARET MARSHALL: Well, it’s not a miracle in the sense-- I mean, it may be.
Forgive me, Archbishop, maybe it is a miracle, I don’t know. [laughter] It was people of
vision. I was looking today at the Freedom Charter, which is the basic, well, not the basic
in 1955-- there has been a commitment and understanding of the importance of equality
under the law. Equal treatment in South Africa, which is the foundation building block.
It is a wonderful constitution, it is a fabulous Constitutional Court, it has fabulously
young lawyers. If you go to South Africa, for Heaven’s sake, go and visit the
Constitutional Court and watch and see what is happening. It is very exciting. So I can’t
help but say-- I don’t know about $5 million prizes, but I can say that this is a fabulous,
fabulous story.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Oh, but I share your faith in the rule of law in South
Africa, and I admire it. Two more questions and we’ll ask your questions. Justice
Goldstone, I have a question for you based on a recent administrative, not legal, decision
by Justice Marshall.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 26 Justice Marshall supports the creation of a Massachusetts Bar Association Committee to
develop plain English jury instructions in several cases because, as she puts it, “the
English language should not be a barrier to justice.” What a quaint idea, Justice Marshall.
[laughter and applause] How is the immense linguistic diversity in South Africa, with its
11 equally, officially recognized languages, navigated by the justice system?
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well, it was a Solomonic decision. South Africa was faced
with very difficult choices with regard for language. Our official languages, until the end
of apartheid, were two, the two white languages: Afrikaans and English. None of the nine
predominant black languages were recognized at all. The choice was: what’s our official
language? If we follow the other former British colonies, we would have chosen English.
That’s the official language of most of the former British colonies in Africa, in our own
region, in Ghana, in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and so on. And they all drive on the wrong
side of the road.
But it wasn’t long to chose English. English was the first language of three million South
Africans. Two million whites and, generalizing, a million Asians, mainly of Indian
extraction. Afrikaans was the first language of three million white Afrikaners and three
million so-called colored South Africans. Six million had English. Nine million had Zulu
as their first language. About six million had Xhosa as their language. How do you
choose English? It would have been unacceptable, and you couldn’t have the two white
languages continuing to be the official languages.
So they decided we would have 11 official languages: two white languages and the nine
main Bantu languages. And everybody thought this would sound a bit crazy. Each of our
nine provinces had to choose at least two of the 11. Some chose two, some chose three.
All chose English. Most of them chose Afrikaans and the predominate black language in
the area. Any South African is entitled by the constitution to get a copy of any official
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 27 document in any of the 11 official languages. The result is that English has become the
unofficial official language.
In our Constitutional Court, I think in 13 years, there has been one argument in
Afrikaans. It’s all English. In Parliament, sometimes to make a point, the other languages
are used. When the budgets are delivered, our Minister of Finance makes a great point of
talking in some of the other official languages. And it’s important to make that point.
The language issue has really just about been completely diffused in this way. From the
Court’s point of view, we took an interesting decision just before I retired from the Court.
We had to put out the rules of the Constitutional Court, new rules for this Court. We took
a principled decision that was prepared, one of my colleagues, Sandili Mogul(?), was the
main author of the rules, as he was then the chairperson of the Rules Committee. We took
a decision that they were not to be published until they were ready in all 11 official
languages. We said we had to respect that constitutional decision.
It caused a problem, it was not easy in some of those languages to get a translation that
satisfied the judges on the court who could understand the language, but that was done. It
was, I think, a Solomonic decision that has removed what could have been a very divisive
area and has diffused it completely.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: I think it was brilliant. And it is curious how English has
emerged as a lingo franco. Final question, Archbishop Tutu, before we open it up to our
very patient guests to our private conversation. This is a big question, and no one is in a
better position to answer it than you. Sir, what is the legacy of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission? Did it accomplish what it set out to do? Do you think that
justice has prevailed for the whites who committed the most heinous crimes and who
refused to go before the Commission?
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 28 I’m thinking in particular of the case of Adrian Vlok, former law and order minister who
refused to go before the TRC. Earlier this year, as you well know, he became the only
senior politician to be convicted of apartheid era crime in a criminal court, as I
understand it, for the 1989 poisoning and attempted murder of the Reverend Frank
Chicane, then the General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. But,
incredibly, he received a suspended, ten-year sentence.
DESMOND TUTU: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission operated under a law
whose title is “The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation.” I think that those
words are quite crucial. The promotion, not the achievement, of reconciliation and
national security. Frequently, when people say, “Have you achieved?” or “Has the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission achieved?” I say reconciliation is not something that can
be achieved even by the most efficient commission that anyone could put together.
Reconciliation is in fact a national project to which each South African is expected to
make a contribution.
I usually get people to look at Germany. Germany was split into two by the Berlin Wall
for what 30, 40 years? Let’s say 50 years. Fifty years. The people who were separated
were Germans. Ethnically they were the same. They spoke the same language. You
would have expected that once the wall fell and you are going to have reunification, that
it would be a cakewalk. Reconciliation would happen just like that. Go to Germany today
and ask, “What is the state of reconciliation between the former Western Germans and
former Eastern Germans?” It’s quite surprising-- Well, it’s very interesting.
I sat in a meeting of church leaders in Germany, and two different people said, “You
know, whenever I get to Checkpoint Charlie, Checkpoint Charlie doesn’t exist anymore,
but when I get to the point where Checkpoint Charlie was , and I cross over, I still
experience what I used to experience, that I am entering an alien area.” You ask and you
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 29 find, extraordinarily, many former Eastern Germans actually having a nostalgia for those
days when they were East Germans.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: The good old days of totalitarianism.
DESMOND TUTU: Yes. Here you have people who speak the same language, who
look alike, who were only separated for only a very short space of time, relatively
speaking, where reconciliation has been problematic.
We were separated not for 50 years, but for 300 years, speaking 11 different languages.
People of different ethnic groupings. The surprising thing, and I said when you asked
earlier, is that we should be where we are today. I think many people say that had the
TRC not happened, we probably would not be speaking as we are. It was a flawed
process, but it was the best that we could have, in that, as Judge Goldstone was pointing
out, we have a common history of a certain period.
Many of the criticism against the TRC were that how can you choose 1960 to 1994? How
do you have such a narrow definition of violations? Apartheid was the whole system.
And I say yes. But the point was to see in ourselves we were acting symbolically. We
were saying this was a quite crucial period in our history, and you gave people the
opportunity who, for so long were anonymous, of being acknowledged.
I was amazed at the power of storytelling for being so therapeutic. I recall a young man, a
black young man, who had been blinded by police action in this township, coming to the
Commission and telling his story. At the end of the story, one of our panel asked him,
“How do you feel? You are still blind.” And he broke out into a broad smile and said,
“You have given me back my eyes.”
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 30 It was the fact that one, it was a commission appointed by a president they loved. They
would be acknowledged, and the media was fantastic. We have to give them all kinds of
kudos, because what was happening in the TRC was being broadcast live on radio. Prime
time news’ first items would be about the testimonies that had occurred in the TRC, and
the newspapers likewise.
So these people who were nobodies, were nothing for so long, were suddenly, “I saw
you. I saw you on television. I saw you in the newspaper. And your story is not just a
thing that goes into the air. Your story has become part of my legacy.”
But the anguish-- Human beings are incredible. When you listen to someone say she’s
injured and she’s been in ICU for several months and she comes home and she says, “I
used not to be able to wash myself, to clothe myself, to feed myself. My children did
these things for me.” And she says of an experience that left her in this condition, she
says, “It enriched my life.” You do a double-take. “It enriched my life.” And she says,
“I’d like to meet the perpetrator. I’d like to meet him in a spirit of forgiveness. And I’d
like to forgive him. And I hope he forgives me.”
On occasions like that, I used to say, “Let us keep quiet. For we are in the presence of
something holy. We ought to take off our shoes because we are standing on holy
ground.” And it was things of that kind, that incredible magnanimity of victims, that
enabled and brought this miracle to continue.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: You were the handmaiden of that miracle, sir. [applause]
Thank you, panelists. Now we will take your questions. We have taken the questions
from the floor. I will read them one by one, and these are from some of our students.
The first question is directed to the good Archbishop.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 31 DESMOND TUTU: Oh dear.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Did the Truth meetings take a mental toll on you? That’s
a fascinating question from the student who asked.
DESMOND TUTU: We were warned not to-- We could so easily traumatize ourselves,
because you are sitting there, you are listening, and the end wish that is being expressed
is not something that you can just push away from you. You take it in. We were warned
not to allow that to happen. A very good sort of analogy was that you shouldn’t become
like a vacuum cleaner.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Or a sponge.
DESMOND TUTU: Yeah. No vacuum cleaner that takes up the rubbish that keeps it in
a bag. You must be like a dishwasher. [laughter]
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: That’s good advice.
DESMOND TUTU: And get it out, get it out. But during the TRC, I contracted prostate
cancer. I probably would have had prostate cancer. Most men do.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: And black men, a lot of black men.
DESMOND TUTU: But it seemed to be significant. It was saying--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Stress.
DESMOND TUTU: I would have put it differently. It was that we were wounded
healers. We were ourselves wounded. Apartheid wounded all of us.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 32
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes.
DESMOND TUTU: We couldn’t see ourselves as being a cut above anyone. All of the
people who came, we were very careful even about the finishing. The way we sat in the
TRC, you’d have the Commission here. And you’d have the witness, but we were on the
same platform. There was not TRC over here, and you down there. We were together
through all of this. And we had the privilege of seeking to heal a wounded people when
we ourselves were also wounded. And hoping in the process we too would be healed.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes. Excellent way to put it.
[applause]
Next question. Actually, I think that the whole concept of an execution of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission is astonishing. Can you imagine that happening in the United
States? After the Civil War? Now? Never.
Second question. What are the panelists’ opinions on Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership
Academy? And I have to say that I was invited by Oprah to the opening, and it was one
of the great days of my life. I felt as if we were watching the creation of Eton or Andover
or Exeter on the African continent, and for poor African girls.
But given the recent abuse, the questioner continues, given the recent abuse charges of
one of the guards, I believe, could Oprah have done more good by spreading the money
and her generosity among many schools in need of support? Or was it good to
concentrate on one academy of excellence? Anyone?
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well, I don’t believe that she should be criticized for
having a school for the best. I think that every country needs to nurture its best. A now
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 33 deceased, very wealthy businessman in South Africa, a bachelor, decided to leave all his
estate to further education of South Africans at his alma mater, which was St. John’s
College, Cambridge. He decided that all of the money, which was really millions of
dollars, should go to South Africans wanting to do a PhD at St. John’s.
People he discussed it with said, “Wouldn’t it be better to spend those millions on South
Africans at South African universities? For every one you send to England, with the
exchange rate as it is, you could be educating 100 people in South Africa.” And he said,
“No. If we ought to succeed in this country, we need the best of the best. Best scientists,
best doctors, best businessmen and women.”
And I think he’s right. And the people that we’ve sent-- I’ve chaired the board and
selection committee for many years-- And we’ve got South Africans, male and female,
black and white, who’ve gone to St. John’s and wrote back something. One of the criteria
he laid on, the condition, the selection committee has to evaluate the prospects of this
person coming back to use those skills in South Africa. We haven’t done too badly.
Sometimes superior powers have supervened and people have got married to someone
from a foreign country. We’ve had some attrition--
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Can’t win ‘em all.
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: I think it’s the same philosophy that has driven Oprah in
wanting to get a school for the best.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Margie? Want to comment on the Big O?
MARGARET MARSHALL: On this one, I feel a little uneasy because I’m here and I
tend to think that people who have access to resources often give it for reasons that are
very different than mine. But I can’t say that educating women in South Africa is a bad
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 34 thing. I really can’t. And I think that if you’re going to educate some women in South
Africa, it’s a good place to start. Perhaps now she could keep going, and keep going, and
keep going, and keep going, and keep going, and have many, many academies.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Archbishop?
DESMOND TUTU: There’s a lot to be said on both sides, you know. But one of the
things that I will say is that it isn’t fair to want to castigate the institution just because
somebody on the staff fell short of the standards. When you can say that about any place,
really. That’s also to be a reason for castigating an academy.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes.
DESMOND TUTU: I think I would support Judge Goldstone to say you want places of
excellence. But you also want to have places which are more accessible to more, because
the need is so desperate that I would hope that we could get more of those monies
available to invest. We used to say divest. Now we say please invest.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: That sounds good. We have time for one more question,
John? Okay. This is from another student. For all of you, and I’d like for each of you to
respond and then we will conclude.
JOHN SHUTTACK: “While the institution of apartheid has been dismantled and
addressed,” this questioner writes, “many would argue that economically, apartheid not
only exists but thrives. How is this being addressed in South Africa today, and what are
your recommendations for bringing more economic equality to the people of South
Africa?”
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 35 DESMOND TUTU: Me?
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: All of you.
DESMOND TUTU: We would wish that somebody did have a wonderful magic wand
that they could wave and hey presto. We find we’ve all crossed the Jordan into the
Promised Land. That hasn’t happen anywhere. It hasn’t happened here in how many
centuries?
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: A long time.
DESMOND TUTU: But that shouldn’t be what motivates us. I myself believe that the
extent of poverty, and some of it is dehumanizing, it is awful, it really is awful. Some of
the things I’ve seen, I mean-- I’ve said, and other people have said, that we really are
really sitting on a power keg.
What is for me surprising is that people can still be so patient. They’ve lived in shacks
before 1994, they’re still in shacks, and what is even extraordinary is that these people
will wake up in their shelter and go and work in a salubrious setting in the affluent part of
town, still very largely white, and come the end of the day, they actually return to their
squalor. I can’t imagine them not saying, “Mandela, Tutu? They all spoke about
reconciliation. To hell with them.” They haven’t done that.
But that doesn’t mean we are not in a situation when one day we could have an
explosion. One of the recommendations of the Truth Commission was that the gap
between the rich and the poor, if it is not narrowed quickly and dramatically, then we can
kiss reconciliation goodbye. I’m afraid we haven’t-- We’ve got black empowerment and
things of that kind, but we are not moving quickly enough in the redistribution of wealth.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 36 It is that wealth is still in the hands of much of the same people who were wealthy before
we became free.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Yes.
DESMOND TUTU: I just hope many of them will see that it is to their advantage to
close that gap.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Margie?
MARGARET MARSHALL: I feel it’s a little presumptuous for me to say what can be
done in South Africa, living in this country which has such a skewed distribution of
wealth which has become even more skewed over the recent decades. I feel I have to
return, though, to where we started with Senator Kennedy, which is really to pick up on
something the Archbishop said.
If there is a commitment for people to try to work to improve it, and I don’t mean just the
government or just the powerful big schemes, but every single person, every single way, I
think ultimately that’s the way you have to go. There has to be a recognition that you
really have to take a longer point of view. This would probably sound very off-key, but
it’s a little bit like our consumption of energy. “Our” meaning in the United States. We
all have to take responsibility and we can ask the government to pass huge legislation or
each one of us can in our way try to make a difference. I think I have found in my life
that if each one of us tries to make just one difference every day that you really can tear
down the greatest walls and you really can build a just society.
HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: Justice Goldstone? A final word?
RICHARD GOLDSTONE: I’ll take a constitutional gloss on this, and it’s interesting
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 37 and relevant, I think, to an American audience. Fortunately, our constitution
constitutionalizes what in the United States is called affirmative action. Our equality
clause provides that it’s not inconsistent with it, to have special programs to right the
wrongs of the apartheid past. I’m paraphrasing - it’s more formal than that, it provides
that it is constitutional to have programs to provide for the disadvantaged, previously
disadvantaged. It’s obviously necessary and it’s really part of what Archbishop Tutu was
talking about, and I agree. We are going too slowly. You can never go fast enough, but
we’re going too slowly.
Let me close with this thought: the one aspect I can never understand and get to grips
with on the United States Supreme Court jurisprudence is its equating affirmative action
with some sort of reverse discrimination. If people had been disadvantaged because of
their race, how do you remove the disadvantage without having regard to their race? It
just isn’t possible. And it’s not the equivalent.
[applause]
JOHN SHATTUCK: We have been treated to a discussion of the long, and I think all of
our panelists and undoubtedly all of you in the audience would agree, endless struggle for
freedom and justice, not only in South Africa, but all over the world, and certainly here in
the United States. And I think, to paraphrase the statement of President Kennedy that is
down in our pavilion, we will not accomplish this in the first 100 days, or first 1,000
days, or the first 100 years, but let us begin. I think that’s really what this extraordinary
inspiration that we have, from a very specific example of South Africa, is all about.
And as someone who attended the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that
this magical human being, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, ran, and who saw how people
came forward to tell their stories, their human stories about justice, I can tell you that I
am privileged to have been a witness, both then and now.
KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE IN SOUTH AFRICA PAGE 38 I thank all of our panelists, I thank Archbishop Tutu, Justice Margie Marshall, Justice
Richard Goldstone, and Professor Henry Louis Gates. And thank you all for coming.
[applause]
