Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the misallocation of resources towards military spending instead of addressing basic human needs like food and education.
Desmond Tutu's quote critiques the global priorities of nations, arguing that while vast sums are wasted on military arms and defense budgets amidst insecurity, significant portions of that spending could instead alleviate poverty and provide essential services such as education and basic nutrition. Tutu emphasizes the moral responsibility to foster conditions that allow all individuals, referred to as 'God's children', to live fulfilling lives rather than succumbing to the destructive cycle of violence and neglect.
In practice
In a speech advocating for humanitarian aid, one might say, 'As Desmond Tutu pointed out, the funds spent on military might could transform lives through education and food security.'
The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions
As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.
Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.
Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.
His chains chinked softly. I seldom fling children from towers to improve their health. Yes, I meant for him to die.
A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.
Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and madness.
I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections. and it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill. I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self, and the wounds to the soul take a long, long time, only time can help and patience, and a certain difficult repentance long difficult repentance, realization of life’s mistake, and the freeing oneself from the endless repetition of the mistake which mankind at large has chosen to sanctify.
True freedom means freeing oneself from the dictates of the ego and its accompanying emotions.
It wasn't until we got over the self pity that we were able to accept suffering as apart of our life with Christ. A man or woman reaches this plane only when he or she ceases to be the hero.
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