Tutu and Franklin: The Past (continue)

DR. FRANKLIN: And every child, every adolescent, every man and woman should be fully acquainted with what happened in this house.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: The slave house.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes; yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: What happened in the Middle Passage. What happened on the other side of the Atlantic. Should be fully acquainted with those things so as to, as to see the distance that has--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: That you have traveled.

DR. FRANKLIN: That we have traveled.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: And that distance will, of course, redound to the benefit of all of us. Now, if we don't know--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes; yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --that we've traveled that distance, that we don't know how much strength and perseverance it took to make the journey--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes; yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --then we won't even understand where we are.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Absolutely. Absolutely.

And, and of course there's also the--as to the humanitarian thing, to say we recognize the depths from which we've come. We were able to emerge from those depths. Let us remember, in order for us not to repeat it on any other human person. Never allow such degrading circumstances, such a system as this one, ever again to happen in our world.

DR. FRANKLIN: Sure. Santayana was not only right--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --but he was right particularly in--if he were--had been addressing one group.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: The--I think that, say, black people would be more generous, and kindly to each other--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --if they knew what they had gone through.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Absolutely.

DR. FRANKLIN: They couldn't possibly visit upon their own people what was visited upon them by others--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --during the slave period.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes; yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: And, and so we, we need to learn the lesson for ourselves--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --and for the way in which we have our relations with each other, as well as to understand what our relations have been and ought to be with other people.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Absolutely. I think, I mean, that you have struck an important note with regard to how experiences of this kind have had an impact on the self-image that people have of themselves, why we have developed so frequently--I mean, we've done it at home, in South Africa, this self-hate, this self-contempt, because of these experiences, and, and we have then tended to project the feelings that we have about ourselves on to others who look like us.

And so the horrendous things that we have tended to do to one another stem, again, from not recognizing where we come from, and what other people sought to do against us.

DR. FRANKLIN: Yes. So many of the policies which we adopt as groups, organizations, and as individuals, reflect this kind of disdain for ourselves.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: This kind of hate for ourselves, which means we have bought into the arguments--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Absolutely..

DR. FRANKLIN: --handed down--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah; yeah.

DR. FRANKLIN: --by others regarding--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.

DR. FRANKLIN: --our degraded position. We then take the cue, apparently,--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yeah.

DR. FRANKLIN: --and proceed to try to outdo them in degrading ourselves.

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