Desmond Tutu is what Gandhi would call a "practical idealist." He believes in the practical, healing power of forgiveness because he sees it as more than a virtue; to him, it is a supreme gift, which we can give either partially or unconditionally. He opts for the latter because with it, he sees a greater freedom for the individual who has been harmed. Forgiveness is not forgetting, he points out, it's an invitation to be courageous and to go against the grain of the sense of radical separation that makes violence possible. Forgiveness is more than a concept; it's an experiential recognition of our common humanity, which has the power to heal both the victim and the perpetrator.
