Forgiveness and Ubuntu: A Study of the Theological Contribution of Desmond Tutu

Currently South Africa is going through a period of political and social instability. The new generations contest the legacy of ‘rainbow nation’, reconciliation, forgiveness and ubuntu as personified by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in the new South Africa. Tutu introduced the Christian language of forgiveness into the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC) and in this way provided his own Christian interpretation of the constitutional mandate of the TRC in terms of ‘unity and national reconciliation.’ He was only able to do that because he wrapped his forgiveness rational in the language of ubuntu. In South Africa, his interpretation of national reconciliation in terms of forgiveness was contested. The media too optimistically hyped individual acts of forgiveness at the TRC, suggesting that these moments could become catalysts for national reconciliation and unity on the way to nation-building. Internationally, Christians celebrated this societal use of the theology of forgiveness at the TRC, sometimes not understanding the ubuntu background of Tutu’s forgiveness discourse. Because the ubuntu concept was unfamiliar, the strings attached to forgiveness were missed. Some Christian theologians were uncomfortable about Tutu’s apparent unproblematic encouragement to forgive. They feared that he had simplified the Christian message of forgiveness. Against this background, this thesis offers a critical analysis of Desmond Tutu’s notions of forgiveness and ubuntu in changing contexts in South Africa. In the end the thesis systematises and proposes a more nuanced understanding of Desmond Tutu’s notions of forgiveness and ubuntu in changing context before and after 1994.