Archbishop Desmond Tutu is my hero. Really, truly, properly. I just think he’s one of the best men to ever have lived. I got to meet him once, when he was the Archbishop of Cape Town, as my Nan and Aunt worshipped there and knew him a little. It’ll probably be one of my favourite memories till I die.
Anyway, it turns out that he has been in Chicago, where he was giving a talk called, “The Dawn of a New Moral Awakening,” at a breakfast given at Chicago Center for Cultural Connections.
This is some of what he said, from Cathleen Falsani at God’s Politics
“The other day, we were traveling and went through one or another of the airports,” Tutu told the diverse audience that included several other Christian bishops, rabbis, imams, Sikhs, and Buddhists, among others. “And the [television] screens showed some illustrations or cartoons of Barack Obama wearing Arab clothes, Muslim garb. I didn’t see all of it because we were passing through, but there was something about it … he was holding a gun and ‘terrorist’ was something that was put down there.”
“I felt incredibly sad for this country,” Tutu said, his sparkly eyes flashing with emotion behind wire-rimmed spectacles. “I thought, how obscene. How repulsive. And also, how dangerous! You know what’s happened already? There are people in this country and in many other countries who are saying, ‘Islam is a religion that propagates violence. Islam is a religion that propagates terrorism.’ It’s an offensive, repulsive, obscene [mischaracterization] and dangerous. And they say this because one of his names is ‘Hussein’? They forget that the other name means ‘blessing.’”
It’s a familiar message but one that bears repeating, if the “Barack Hussein Obama is a covert Muslim terrorist” e-mails that keep arriving in my mailbox — a week before the election — are any indication.
“Imagine what would happen if all Christians said, ‘Jews, you killed our Lord!’” Tutu said. “There was a time when Christians said, ‘Jews are guilty of deicide,’ of murdering God. That was obscene. That was repulsive and that was dangerous, because from that came the justification for the persecution of Jews, ending with the Holocaust. It’s dangerous. Dangerous!”
Reducing any person or people to a stereotype is dangerous, the archbishop insisted, especially if it’s done with the claim of a divine imprimatur.
“I don’t know about you, but I am so glad I’m not God,” Tutu said, drawing one of many bursts of laughter from the rapt audience. “I really am glad I’m not God. But I’m also so glad that God is God. He is an incredible God!”
Instead, Tutu said, “God says, ‘Help me. Help me. Help me make this world the kind of world I intended for it to be. Help me. Help me so I can make this world more compassionate. Help me. Help me to make this a world that is more caring. Help me, help me, please help me, to make this world a world where there will be no poverty; where my children won’t spend as much as they do on weapons of destruction, and would spend a small fraction of what they do on killing to make sure my children everywhere have enough to drink and have food to eat. Help me. Please help me. Please help me. I have no one except you.’”
