A talk with Tutu.

• Position: Journalist talks about his interviews with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and conservative Dinesh D'Souza - Brief Article - Editorial

The interview this month with Archbishop Desmond Tutu is dear to me because my political awareness dates back to the movement to end apartheid.

When I was in college, I threw myself into the campus divestiture campaign--an effort to pressure universities to sell their stocks in companies that were doing business with the racist government of South Africa. I spent the better part of my four years attending meetings, writing leaflets, putting up posters, and organizing rallies.

We occasionally invited representatives of the African National Congress (ANC) to speak at our demonstrations. One evening, we asked a man from the ANC to go out to a bar with us. We ordered a pitcher of beer and started to pour him a glass, but he refused it. "I have vowed not to have a drop of liquor until liberation day," he said.

He was thirsty for a long time. That was twenty years ago, and I was young and impatient. It was hard for me to glimpse the long-term view that inspired people like Nelson Mandela and Steven Biko and thousands of other men and women to make huge sacrifices for freedom.

I remember tears welling up in my eyes that day in 1990 when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison. I remember rejoicing as he embraced Winnie Mandela. And I remember Desmond Tutu hopping around in a jubilant dance.

Since that day, a lot has changed. Apartheid is over. Nelson Mandela is stepping down as president after successfully serving out his term. Winnie Mandela is now Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and Desmond Tutu is head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In that capacity, he stands in judgment over her for her role in some grotesque human-rights abuses, which allegedly included nine murders.

The Winnie Madikizela-Mandela scandal is an embarrassment not only to the ANC but also to those in this country who idealized her. This hero worship continued even after her 1989 conviction for kidnapping Stompie Seipei, the fourteen-year-old who was murdered by one of her goons. To defend--even exalt--someone after such damning evidence about her comes to light is disturbing, to say the least.

I wasn't impressed with Madikizela-Mandela during her hearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. From the reports I read, she basically denied everything and made a mere gesture of apology only after Tutu begged her.

"Happy the age that needs no hero," Bertolt Brecht is reported to have said. That certainly applies in the case of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

We sent Zia...