NO FUTURE WITHOUT FORGIVENESS

This remarkable book tells the harrowing but redemptive story of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), set up as a 'third way' between Nuremberg-style recriminations and national amnesia. Whatever its shortcomings, the TRC pre-empted what many commentators thought would be an inevitable bloodbath following the demise of Apartheid. The TRC vindicated its thesis that 'reconciliation after conflict is not easy, but it is the only way forward, whether at a political or personal level'. The process is a tribute to all involved, but notably to the magnanimity and vision of Nelson Mandela and the author himself. They both recognised that the process was as much a spiritual as a political one.

The book begins with an account of the euphoric first elections, a process that most readers may blandly take for granted until they read Tutu's account. He tackles head-on the question of justice in relation to those who came forward to the commission and confessed spine-chilling tortures and murders carried out in the name of national security. Retributive justice demands punishment while restorative justice takes the risk of acknowledging the shortcomings of such an approach, especially in matters of politics where it is clear that security forces are carrying out the will of the government. This leads to some poignant debates about whether a new generation has the right to forgive the crimes of the past on other people's behalf. This is highlighted by the Holocaust, where people ask what right there is to forgive the unforgivable. Yet without forgiveness, the future is an impasse tied to the injustices perpetrated in the past, a point to which I shall return below.

The most moving part of the book is the accounts from both sides of the divide of torture, rape, murder and death. One can understand, says Tutu, how God might have thought it best to start again by wiping out humanity in a flood, but yet the heroic way in which some victims forgave their torturers is truly inspiring. Yet there is a deeper truth here: one can literally destroy oneself by nurturing bitterness, as recent studies on the relationship between immune functioning and negative emotions have demonstrated – 'our unforgiveness undoes us'. Truth and confession are an integral part of catharsis and healing. One of the most awesome stories concerns an American couple who set up a special foundation to help young people in a township after their daughter had been murdered on a holiday trip.

The book shows how people were able to move beyond denial and self-justification towards healing and forgiveness. In a poignant scene, Tutu relates an act of communal forgiveness in a church where he embraces a former Army chaplain and the congregation gives them a standing ovation! Towards the end of the book, Tutu returns to the more general lesson of the TRC for other intractable conflicts. He sees God as having initiated a centripetal movement towards unity and harmony, goodness, justice and peace. One can appreciate the force of the book's title that there is no future without forgiveness in the Middle East, Ireland, India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. But will the people in these scarred places be able to bring themselves to take the same kind of risk as the South Africans? Only time will tell, but true human evolution will require us to take the step beyond retribution to restoration – and is this not a central message of Jesus Christ? One finishes the book with great affection and respect for the author – ecce homo. Or, as Bertrand Russell, no friend of Christianity, put it: remember your humanity and forget the rest. This is a book that touches the heights and depths of our humanity, our sublimity and our degradation, reminding us that we are all frail and vulnerable in extreme circumstances.