No Future Without Forgiveness

Here is a powerful and humbling thought, in regards to Nelson Mandela coming out of jail after 27 years.

" Humanly speaking, we would be inclined to say that those 27 years were an utter shameful waste; just think of all he could have contributed to the good of South Africa and the world. I don't think so. Those 27 years and all the suffering they entailed were the fires of the furnace that tempered his steel, that removed the dross. Perhaps without that suffering he would have been less able to be as compassionate and as magnanimous as he turned out to be. And that suffering on behalf of others gave him an authority and credibility that can be provided by nothing else in quite the same way. The true leader must at some point or other convince her or his followers that she or he is in this whole business not for self-aggrandizement but for the sake of others. Nothing is able to prove this quite so convincingly as suffering. "

Desmond Tutu - No Future Without Forgiveness - Chapter Three - Page 39