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Reconciliation is a long process. We don't have the kind of race clashes that we thought would happen. What we have is xenophobia, and it's very distressing. But maybe you ought to be lenient with us. We've been free for just 12 years.

Desmond Tutu

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Desmond Tutu
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: October 7
Activist
Anglican Priest
Non-Fiction Writer
Archbisphop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu
Happens
Clash
Thought
Reconciliation
Long
Ought
Kind
Happen
Years
Maybe
Clashes
Would
Race
Lenient
Free
Xenophobia
Process
Distressing

More quotes by Desmond Tutu

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It's a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.
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True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgment of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know.
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For both the offender and the victim, the pain is there, often unacknowledged and that is when it can cause harm through festering. When I ignore a physical wound, it does not go away. No, it festers and goes bad.
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It is quite exhilarating to speak about a God who has an incredible bias, a notorious bias in favor of the downtrodden. You look at Exodus and the Israelites' escape from a bottomless pit. God is not evenhanded. God is biased up to his eyebrows.
Desmond Tutu
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I am human because I belong, I participate, I share.
Desmond Tutu
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The reprisal against the suicide bomber does not bring peace. There is a suicide bomber, a reprisal and then a counter-reprisal. And it just goes on and on.
Desmond Tutu
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If forgiving depended on the culprit owning up, then the victim would always be at the mercy of the perpetrator. The victim would be bound in the shackles of victimhood.
Desmond Tutu
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Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.
Desmond Tutu
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One of the things we might want to learn when considering the failings of others is not to gloat because someone else has tripped up.
Desmond Tutu
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Forgiving is not forgetting its actually remembering--remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened.
Desmond Tutu
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Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility.
Desmond Tutu
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People are killed because they're gay. I don't think, What do I want to do today? I want to speak up on gay rights. No. It's God catching me by my neck. I wish I could keep quiet about the plight of the Palestinians. I can't!
Desmond Tutu
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In God's family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.
Desmond Tutu
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Catharsis is about cleansing and healing at one and the same time - healing memories and attitudes, healing the spirit and the heart.
Desmond Tutu
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I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . .
Desmond Tutu
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There is no religion in fact that I know that encourages or propagates violence in that its adherents should carry out.
Desmond Tutu
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Nuclear abolition is the democratic wish of the world's people, and has been our goal almost since the dawn of the atomic age. Together, we have the power to decide whether the nuclear era ends in a bang or worldwide celebration.
Desmond Tutu
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Let girls be girls and not brides
Desmond Tutu
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People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change.
Desmond Tutu
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Our lives are a response to a love that we already have received.
Desmond Tutu