I mean in the South African case, many of those who were part of death squads would have been respectable members of their white community, people who went to church on Sunday, every Sunday.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the moral contradictions within individuals who can commit atrocities yet maintain a respectable social facade.
Desmond Tutu's quote addresses the disturbing reality of individuals who participated in violence and injustice, such as death squads in South Africa, while simultaneously being viewed as upstanding members of their communities. It serves as a reflection on human morality, suggesting that societal norms can often overlook or even condone heinous actions committed by seemingly ordinary people, who may appear devout or honorable in public life.
In practice
In a discussion about moral accountability during a seminar on human rights.
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.
War is like love, it always finds a way.
Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.
Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
Most believe that a satisfactory future requires a return to an idealized past, a past which never in fact existed.
Perhaps no promise in life is more reassuring than that promise of divine assistance and spiritual guidance in times of need. It is a gift freely given from heaven, a gift that we need from our earliest youth through the very latest days of our lives.
Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.
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