Desmond Tutu, Skoll Global Treasure Award, Skoll World Forum 2011

Desmond Tutu accepts the first ever Skoll Global Treasure Award at the Skoll World Forum 2011.

Well this is a bit of fun, isn't it? We've got music and movies and awards, this is such a special night. It's not easy to set a new tradition in a thousand year old university and even at our eighth annual Skoll World Forum, but tonight we are about to experience another first, I'm so delighted to introduce our next guest the first ever recipient of the Skoll Global Treasure Award. According to the Oxford dictionary, one of the definitions of "treasure" is anything or person greatly valued or highly prized. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is someone whose life epitomizes that definition.

The Archbishop is a teacher a theologian and a shining light whose singular commitment to creative non-violence bent the ark or 20th century history towards Justice. His defiance in the face of extreme adversity demonstrates a rare courage and extraordinary humanity that comes from a place of true love and compassion. We all know that Archbishop Tutu is widely regarded as South Africa's moral conscious. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his internationally acclaimed leadership in the struggle against the apartheid. And in 1986 he was elected Archbishop of Cape Town, the highest position in the Anglican Church of South Africa. We may also know that the Archbishop was appointed chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate Apartheid era crimes. The model he established, based on truth as a foundation for forgiveness and reconciliation was central to healing South Africa's divided society.

But what we may not know about the Archbishop is that behind the scenes he has an irrepressible sense of humor and a laugh that can't help but make people want to laugh along with him, I've come to know Archbishop Tutu, through his role as chairman of the Elders, a group of eminent global leaders convened by Nelson Mandela, to collectively address the major problems facing humanity.The Archbishop delicately manages his role as chair, with humour and seriousness in equal doses, reminding us all that even in the darkest moments, we can still shine a light to guide the way. He even encourages us to call him "Arch," a term that we use with great endearment. As Nelson Mandela once said of the Archbishop, his joy in our diversity and his spirit of forgiveness are as part as his immeasurable contribution to our nation, As his passion for justice and his solidarity with the poor.

So here is a brief film celebrating the incredible life of the Archbishop.


... and you have to keep holding on to the fact that this is a moral universe that ultimately right will prevail. There's no question about it, there's no, there's no question at all. Industry, government, civil society and you and I. We can all make a difference. We're made to live in a delicate network of complimentary, of making up for what is making one another's gifts.

For we are made for goodness, we're made for laughter, we're made for joy, we're made for caring, we're made, we're made for transcendence, we're made for, we're made for compassion and caring, and God says fly eagle fly.


Ladies and Gentlemen, the

Skoll Foundation is truly honored to award the first ever Skoll global treasure award to Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so so so very much. I think it's probably a week or so ago were in San Francisco and I was going to be preaching at the cathedral, Grace cathedral, and they have a preschool attached to the cathedral, and I walk in, and one of these young ones piped up, "oh your old". But one of the good things about being old, is that you are allowed to be repetitive.

You can tell the same stories, and sometimes tell it to the person who first told you the story. And so, you understand as well as where I come from, when I say I am, I really am awed. I am awed by all of you. I'm awed by all of you wonderful recpitants of the awards. I'm awed... I'm awed by the fact you don't want to allow yourselves to be overwhelmed by the awfulnesses.

Thank you, thank you Jeff.
Thank you, Sally. Thank you, all of you in the Skoll Foundation, you are just fantastic, and I do want to say a every special thank you to Tina. She has been my chaperone and making sure I behave properly. But, thank you. Jeff could have said, "Well, I've made my packet and hahaha, bye bye everybody!" you know, but no. He may not be able to theologize it this way but he is actually saying I am a conduit. I'm a conduit of the goodness of the love of, of all that, belongs to God. And we in the Elders are constantly almost made speechless by the generosity of all of the who's supporting our project. Thank you. Thank you Sally, thank you all of you.

I want to
tell you that as I have grown older, I have become increasingly aware, of just how much I owe to others. I accept this incredible award, representatively because I stand out in the crowd only because they are carrying me on their shoulders. Without them I am nothing. it is those incredible people back home who have enabled me to shine and on their behalf I say thank you but just in case you get away you think, "Oh, isn't he nice, he's so modest and nothing of the sort, I mean I my wife and I went to Westpoint, the military academy, and and the end of my visit the cadets decided they were going to give me a cap to commemorate the visit, and I tried the cap on.

Now a nice wife would have said, "The cap is too small." Leah said his head is too big.

I get accolades really unfairly. People speak about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as if it had been my creation. I did absolutely nothing. There were other people who were fantastic. I am I think the one thing I am is I am a good captain.

I recognize that people are more gifted than I and say go for it. In the audience here I think there is a young man, Baullos, Baullos, Paul Francil was one of our team, a brilliant young man who friendly TLC and like the good Captain, when the team plays well and they win I get a kudos. But I just want to say to you, you allow me to say just a few little things, little things.

I had a mother who was not educated beyond elementary school. She was a fantastic person, she was extraordinarily generous, she Leah called it the comforter of the frigid because each time anyone had the worst of an argument, you're quite sure my mom would be on the side of the one who was having the worst of it. I resemble I resemble her physically, she was stumpy and she had a large nose, but I always pray "Please God, help me to be, in my temperament in my in who I am help me to be a little more like my mother. Please." One day I was with her, I was maybe eight or nine, and she was working as a domestic worker, a cook for blind women in an institution. And someone swept past, a tall english man with a sombreo, and as he went past he doffed his hat to my mother. A white man doffing his hat to a black woman, uneducated. I didn't know it was Trevor Huddleston and later I went to live in Sophia town, in a hostel that the community of the resurrection to which he belonged had set up.

I got TB and was in hospital for twenty months and for most of that time, once a week,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Trevor Huddleston</span> came to visit me. Me! A township by an important white man You don't know. You don't know. No, you don't know. Without help for me to become, perhaps, perhaps I would have to become embittered, and hated white people for what they did, for what they were doing to us and I almost always wanted to emulate <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Trevor Huddleston</span>
and, and to be like my mother and I look around in this room and I look around in my mind's eye, in the places that you work, and I say yes.

We are made for goodness. We are made for transcendence, we are made for compassion, we're made for, we're made, we're made for caring, we're made for sharing, we're made, we're made to be good that, that, that The bad, the evil, the vicious those are the aberrations, and God gives up on no one, and you and I are part of this divine project of turning this world to make it more hospitable, for goodness, for laughter, for caring, for joy and hey when God looks down, God sees Libya.
 God sees the Ivory Coast. God sees Gaza and, and, and, and God cries. God weeps. I think did you notice? Did you notice that little angel who went and wiped off the tears from God's eyes, and God was beginning to smile, because God looked at those Skoll Foundation. God looked and so, and the smile of God was like Sunshine after rain, and god said hahaha they have vindicated me. They're vindicated me. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Goodness and laughter and joy and caring! I'm just going to...envelope my world! And you, and you, and you, and you, and you put a smile on gods' face. Thank you.
Related Videos