We Have a Lot to Learn from Archbishop Tutu. Even From His Mistakes
Yet, while he consistently defended Israel’s right to exist and called on Arab nations to recognize Israel, too, even when speaking to Palestinian audiences, Tutu criticized Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and questioned how people who had survived the Holocaust could perpetrate an occupation of another people.
“He didn’t talk about the Israel lobby, he talked about the Jewish lobby,” Dershowitz said, which to many ears implies some sort of ethnic conspiracy.
Tutu was sensitive to the complaint, but even as he tried to clear up misunderstanding in a 1984 speech at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, he still fanned more flames with references to a “Jewish lobby.”
As a man of words — very important words — I would think he would know better. At best, he sounds to me in such moments like an elderly uncle who means well but is so conditioned by a life largely spent in struggle against discrimination and other injustices that he just couldn’t quite understand all the ways in which his words can be taken the wrong way.
We have seen similar offenses committed in America’s racial politics, in which the wrong words or symbols can touch off a political firestorm in today’s “cancel culture” and other forms of “political correctness.”
Tutu was an excellent leader and speaker who happened to dive into some of the world’s most controversial issues, including LGBTQ rights, as well as Palestinian rights and Israel’s right to defend itself.
The problem with hazardous words like “Jewish lobby” is their tendency to credit or blame an entire group of people when the issue is really about political leadership.
I have found plenty to criticize about Israeli and Palestinian leaders who I think squandered some opportunities for peace. Maybe I’m right or maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t want to be misunderstood as criticizing an entire group of people when the real problem is the mistakes of their leaders.
Tutu left us with a lot of helpful lessons about how different groups can get along, including lessons he had to learn the hard way.
We can learn a lot from both.
========
(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
©2021 Clarence Page. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(c) 2021 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
