The seemingly unending ethnic strife in Yugoslavia, stalled peace talks in the Middle East and the continuing vulnerability and fragility of the Belfast Agreement should increase our appreciation of the relatively peaceful transition in South Africa, according to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Giving the fifth Independent Newspapers lecture at Trinity College Dublin last night, the chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission said he believed we lived in a moral universe "and that right and wrong, justice and oppression matter. It is quite impossible that evil and wrong should ultimately prevail. They can't have the last word".
His address was entitled "Managed Transition: The Post Conflict Situation - A Look at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission". He was introduced by Dr Maurice Hayes, a director of Independent Newspapers and former Northern Ireland ombudsman.
Other Independent Newspapers directors present included the chairman, Dr A.J.F. O'Reilly; deputy chairman, Mr John Meagher; Mr Vincent Ferguson; Mr James McCarthy; and Mr Gavin O'Reilly. Executives from the group included Mr David Palmer, managing director, Independent Newspapers (Ireland); Mr James Parkinson, financial director; Mr Vincent Doyle, editor of the Irish Independent; and Mr Paul Drury, editor of the Evening Herald).
Dr Patrick Hillery, a former president, was among the guests, as were Dail deputies Mr Michael D. Higgins and Mr Pat Rabbitte. Others present included Mr Kevin McGoran, deputy chairman and chief executive of the Fitzwilton Group); Dr Thomas Mitchell, Provost of TCD; Mr Hugo Lambrechts, charge d'affaires at the South African embassy; Mr Justice Hugh O'Flaherty of the Supreme Court; Mr Martin Mansergh, adviser to the Taoiseach; Sir George Quigley, chairman of the Ulster Bank; the Very Rev J.T.F. Paterson (Dean of Christ Church Cathedral; and the Most Rev James Moriarty, auxiliary Bishop of Dublin.
Archbishop Tutu said the guiding principle behind the work of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was that amnesia over past wrongs was unacceptable. "That would not have helped to heal the pains inflicted by the horrors of the past."
So instead, he said, South Africa offered freedom to individuals in exchange for full disclosure of past wrongs done.
He said the TRC had afforded victims an opportunity to tell their story in their own words. In this way "little people" who had testified had stated they now felt a great burden had been lifted.
The TRC had uncovered a great deal of truth about the apartheid era, he went on. As for reconciliation, he acknowledged that critics had pointed to surveys showing that many had said they would not forgive, and that they believed the work of the TRC had served to make race relations more difficult and people more angry.
"The truth is unpalatable and will upset many people," he said. Nevertheless the TRC had provided the setting for many individual acts of reconciliation.
He said South Africa would succeed because God wanted it to succeed, so he could point to it as an example for the rest of the world.
"God will say they were not smart, they were certainly not virtuous - but look at them now. They used to have a nightmare called apartheid. That has ended - your nightmare (Northern Ireland, Middle East, Bosnia et al) too will end."