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News :: Civil & Human Rights

Desperation fuels terrorism, Tutu says

Chicago, Il - To defeat terrorism, the United States and its allies must promote fundamental issues of human rights and dignity around the globe, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in a Palm Sunday homily in St. Sabina Catholic Church.
"There is no way we shall ever win the war against terror as long as we allow conditions in the world--conditions of poverty, of disease, of ignorance--that make people desperate," said Tutu, 72, the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who helped establish South Africa's landmark Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the fall of apartheid.

Tutu's appearance, which fell on the 36th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, was his second in two years at the predominantly African-American South Side church and was timed to coincide with the release of his new book, "God Has a Dream."

In front of an overflow audience that included Rev. Jesse Jackson, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama, Tutu returned to a theme during his 2002 visit, urging listeners to consider a world free of bigotry.

Tutu said God dreams "that one day his children will wake up and realize they are family."

The message was received enthusiastically by St. Sabina parishioners, who several times interrupted Tutu's comments with applause, laughter and shouts of encouragement.

"The way to defeat terrorism is to feed the world," said St. Sabina member Charles Jones, 59, after mass. "Everybody wants to be treated like a man or like a woman, and be treated with respect."

Diane Cohen, 57, of Lombard said after the mass, "If some of the wealthier countries had that philosophy, that we are family, the world would be a much better place."

Tutu said that South Africa, once a pariah state for its racial politics, now serves as a model for how compassion and humanity can trump violence and revenge in pursuit of justice.

"We went the route of magnanimity and generosity of spirit ... [and] we have scored a spectacular victory over the viciousness of apartheid," Tutu said, citing the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Founded in 1995, the commission sought to publicly recognize human rights abuses under the apartheid system, which for almost 50 years kept the races legally separate until 1994.

"If it could happen in South Africa, then thank goodness it could happen anywhere in the world," he said.
 
 

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