I still remember clearly the day in 2002 when I almost met Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The choir I sang with was performing at a memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, one year after the attacks of September 11, and Tutu delivered the homily. Like many people, I felt awe-struck in his presence. It would be hard not to feel so: This was the man who had somehow been able to lead—with grace and humility—victims and perpetrators of Apartheid-era South Africa through a process that required them to come face-to-face and recognize the harm they had done to one another. Against the grain of recent history, he had been able to guide these Truth and Reconciliation hearings with a transcendent discourse that expected more of the people involved than the same old recrimination and dehumanization of the other side. After the service, I considered approaching him to stammer out some incoherent but heartfelt line about how the world was a better place for his presence in it, but instead, I ended up hovering seven feet away in hesitation, as he and some clergy stood talking, their backs towards me.
What hit me in that moment was Tutu’s slight stature; though he may have been adorned with the scarlet cloak and cap befitting someone of his position in the Anglican Church, the man these garments adorned was actually quite small and, well, human-sized. Yet, still, he exuded an aura of beneficence, of wisdom, of gentleness—as a person who simply commands respect, not through coercion or manipulation or domination, but through the sheer force of his humanity. He was at once undeniably human—of flesh and blood, and no doubt flawed like the rest of us—and, at the same time, in command of a moral force to which few of us have access.
Five years later, he and eleven others who, through their tireless work for peace and justice, similarly defy the limits of humanity—or perhaps remind us of what humanity really is, or can be—came together as the Elders, a group whose aim is to “catalyze peaceful resolutions to long-standing conflicts, articulate new approaches to global issues that are or may cause immense human suffering, and share wisdom by helping to connect voices all over the world.” Entrepreneur Richard Branson and musician/activist Peter Gabriel came up with the idea for the Elders in conversation with former South African President Nelson Mandela about how to confront seemingly insurmountable conflicts and global issues (such as malaria and climate change). Branson and Gabriel felt that as the world approached global village status it was still missing its village elders—political leaders, activists, and humanitarians who could use the respect accorded their age, experience, and wisdom to intervene in crises and prevent conflicts from escalating to violence. As Branson put it in a recent interview with Oprah, Gabriel and he “felt that the world needed a group of wise leaders to look up to—men and women who are beyond ego, who can look past their borders and take on global issues.”
Mandela was receptive to the idea, and he and fellow founding members announced the initiation of the group in Johannesburg on his 89th birthday this past July. Along with Mandela and Tutu (who is the Chair), current Elders include: Graça Machel (women’s and children’s rights advocate and President of the Foundation for Community Development), Kofi Annan (former United Nations Secretary General), Jimmy Carter (former President of the United States), Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland, and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights), Muhammad Yunus (founder of Grameen Bank), Ela Bhatt (grassroots development and microfinance advocate in India), Gro Harlem Brundtland (physician, and former director general of the World Health Organization), Fernando H. Cardoso (sociologist, and former President of Brazil), Lakhdar Brahimi (former special representative of and former special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General), and Ann San Suu Kyi (leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma).
Because they act in their capacities as private citizens (albeit private citizens who are very public figures), the Elders are not beholden to any government. And, since they are funded privately—by a few individuals and foundations, including the Bridgeway Foundation, Humanity United, and The United Nations Foundation—they are not accountable to special interests. This means that they can operate with a combination of independence, flexibility, and impartiality that is rare in global politics.
So far, the Elders have focused their energies on three conflicts: Darfur/Sudan, Kenya, and the Middle East. Their first full-fledged mission was to Sudan last fall. Elders Tutu, Brahimi, Carter, and Machel spent four days in Sudan traveling between the northern capital city of Khartoum, Juba in the South, and El-Fasher and Nyala in Darfur, speaking with and listening to government officials (including President al-Bashir), community leaders and activists, and internally displaced people in the Darfur camps. Though it remains to be seen whether the Elders’ report from this trip will have any impact, it is a clear outline of the steps each side needs to take to protect civilian populations and the key issues each side needs to address to move towards a genuine, sustainable peace.
The Elders also intervened in Kenya’s recent post-electoral crisis. Tutu arrived shortly after the violence began, “pressing for calm and peaceful mediation,” and Elders Annan and Machel, along with Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa, headed up the mediation team that, at the invitation of the African Union, finally brokered a power-sharing agreement between President Kibaki and opposition candidate Raila Odinga.
Most recently, Elder Carter embarked on a much more controversial mission, meeting with leaders in Israel/Palestine (including those of Hamas) to help break the deadlock between Israel and the occupied territories that is increasingly exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Both Israel and the United States identify Hamas as a terrorist organization, refusing to speak directly with its leaders, so Carter’s step was bold. In the face of this powerful opposition, however, he proceeded and emerged from meetings with what seemed like a real coup: Hamas, whose official stance on Israel until now has been to refuse its right to exist, declared that it would accept Israel’s existence within 1967 borders as the peaceful neighbor of a Palestinian state—if that is what Palestinians voted for. Even though Carter made sure to have this in writing, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has since toned down his statement, saying that such an arrangement would represent not a recognition of Israel’s right to exist but rather a semi-long-term “truce” with the state of Israel. There is disagreement, therefore, on whether Carter made any headway on his visit. Yet, such small steps can create political space for deeper recognition in the future.
The Elders’ track record, though mixed, is impressive—especially given that the organization is not even a year old. But the organization is not without its detractors. A quick internet search reveals a range of criticism—from conservatives and pro-lifers who see the Elders as a group of left-wingers with a nefarious agenda to those who say such “idealistic” attempts at peace and justice will make little difference in the hard, cold “reality” of international power politics. The former critiques—which say that the group supports anti-Israeli terrorists and advocates for homosexuality and abortions—are unfounded, as they actively misrepresent the rights for which many of the Elders have worked. (Though the group has leveled difficult criticisms against Israel, they have certainly never supported suicide bombings.) What this argument proves, though, is the difficulty of finding a dozen non-controversial figures who are universally respected.
But the latter so-called “realist” critiques are more serious—the claim that the effectiveness of the Elders’ work is severely hampered because they don’t have the military or economic power of a state (or even an international organization like the United Nations) to back them up. What this criticism misses, however, is that state-backed diplomacy and even military action are often not terribly effective. And that is precisely how the Elders might be useful.
It is precisely because traditional diplomats represent states, that they often do not have the freedom to, for instance, engage with the most despicable leaders or groups, as this would constitute a loss of face—a sign that the state is “giving in” to terrorists. And even if a diplomat or state leader agrees to enter into talks with a disreputable leader or group, his or her inducements can often be more easily disregarded than those communicated by respected persons with no political attachments.
As Branson put it to Oprah, “When someone like Nelson Mandela or Kofi Annan is on the phone, people will take that call.” When an Elder agrees to meet, listen to, and speak with political leaders who may be responsible for horrible acts, they exercise a different form of power than that of military or economic might. This power goes beyond the discreet persuasion or even coercion of traditional state diplomacy; it is the power that comes from the moral force of being a respected human being. It is harder to claim that someone like Desmond Tutu has hidden imperialistic motives, or that Jimmy Carter (who is risking his reputation in actively opposing the official policy of his home country) is not to be trusted. Crossing someone who has the respect of the global community—and who is clearly not working for his or her own state’s self-interest—has real consequences in terms of how a state or a group can portray itself to its allies.
The conflicts in both Sudan and Israel/Palestine, racked with complexities, will be difficult to resolve, or even temporarily defuse—even with the intervention of some of the most widely respected people on the globe. But neither will these conflicts be transformed by more of the same—cycles of violence or armed interventions that assume military force can make layers of acquired hostility, subordination, dehumanization, and grievances simply disintegrate. If anything will be effective in achieving a just peace in these conflicts, it will be the slow, steady work that includes the watchful eyes of the global community, and the mindful presence and moral pressure of those who are prominent enough to demand attention and courageous enough to sit down with leaders whose actions they deplore.
All twelve Elders know that peace and justice don’t come overnight—that real change is messy, imperfect, and risky. They cannot be accused of sitting in ivory towers and proclaiming their utopian visions; they know the reality of violence and the reality of injustice. And to confront it, they offer their humanity, their openness to listen to their fellow human beings. Tutu suggested, in his homily at the Washington National Cathedral on September 11, 2002, that as Americans “come to know a little of the insecurity, the sense of helplessness, that so many of their sisters and brothers out there have experienced as their daily lot,” they should respond by recognizing that their fate is tied to that of the rest of the world. By seeing the rest of the world as their responsibility and by engaging with everyone—even those who are responsible for wrong-doing—the Elders embody this ethic of shared security, and of shared vulnerability.
This shared vulnerability is what makes us part of the human family, and it is the radical notion that we “belong together,” in Tutu’s words, which reverberate from an old cassette tape I’ve saved from that day—this “radical-ness that we have not yet fathomed, that we are members of one family,” Hutu and Tutsi, Bush and bin Laden, Palestinians and Israelis—that ultimately guides the work that the Elders must take on.
Molly Wallace is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Brown University and is a volunteer mediator at the Community Mediation Center of Rhode Island. She is writing her dissertation on nonviolent action.
Tags: Ann San Suu Kyi, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ela Bhatt, Fernando H. Cardoso, Graça Machel, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahimi, Mary Robinson, Muhammad Yunus, Nelson Mandela, Peter Gabriel, The Elders, Truth and Reconciliation