“To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already. It is to support the status quo.” – Desmond Tutu.
A Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper
Niagara At Large cannot let October go by without acknowledging the retirement from public life earlier this month of one of the most courageous peace activists of our age – the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
I had the pleasure of hearing Tutu speak in the Buffalo area shortly after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1980s and while he was still speaking out to the world against an apartheid system that was oppressing the black majority in his country and keeping Nelson Mandela imprisoned on charges of terrorism that were so unfortunately supported by then U.S. president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
One wondered, during those years when Tutu would be killed off by the forces of oppression or imprisoned, at the very least. Thank goodness for the world, he is still with us today and apparently plans to continue working through his Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation despite his recent retirement at age 79.
Thank goodness we also have Tutu’s wise and always optimistic words.
“This is a moral universe, which means that despite all the evidence that seems to be to the contrary, there is now way that evil and injustice and oppression and lies can have the last word. …. That is what has upheld the moral of our people, to know that in the end, good will prevail,” he once said.
“In a situation where human life seems dirt cheap, with people being killed as easily as one swats a fly, we must proclaim that people matter and matter enormously.”
Long live Desmond Tutu!
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