When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal.
Interpretation
Engaging with injustice reduces personal pain by addressing feelings of guilt and despair.
Desmond Tutu's quote emphasizes the importance of confronting injustice directly rather than remaining passive. By getting involved, individuals not only help to remedy the suffering around them but also alleviate their own feelings of guilt and hopelessness, allowing for emotional healing for both themselves and those affected by the injustice.
In practice
During a speech on social responsibility, I quoted Desmond Tutu to encourage involvement in community issues.
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.
It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking.
Parliaments have stopped laughing at woman suffrage, and politicians have begun to dodge! It is the inevitable premonition of coming victory.
As long as a man's heart beats, as long as a man's flesh quivers, I do not allow that a being gifted with thought and will can allow himself to despair.
The only way I can describe the extent of my anxiety is to say that I felt as if I were pregnant with a rock.
Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something.
Tonight, savagery in the streets of Iraq. Ten Americans die in a single day, four of them civilians murdered, mutilated and dragged through the streets....What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy it may be, for some, the only job they can find.
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