Johan Kotzé not a monster - Tutu

News24
January 18, 2012.

Cape Town - Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has called on the media and public to stop calling Limpopo rape and murder accused Johan Kotzé the "Modimolle monster", saying that despite his alleged crimes, he is still a child of God.

Kotzé is accused of hiring three men to gang-rape and mutilate his estranged wife, and of killing her 19-year-old son.

Tutu wrote a letter to The Star, in which he condemned what had happened, but also expressed his concern that the widespread outrage over Kotzé's alleged actions had led to him being dubbed a monster.

'Capacity to become a saint'

"He may indeed be guilty of inhuman, ghastly and monstrous deeds, but he is not a monster. We are actually letting him off lightly by calling him a monster because monsters have no moral sense of right and wrong - and therefore cannot be held morally culpable, cannot be regarded as morally blameworthy," Tutu wrote.

He added that Kotzé "remains a child of God with the capacity to become a saint. This may shock some of us".

"We should condemn ghastly acts of awful cruelty but we must, as they say, hate the sin and love the sinner, or hope that he may change for the better."

He said this was in many ways the basis of the Truth and Reconciliation process.

"We heard bloodcurdling stories of how people had been murdered brutally and yet we saw some extraordinary scenes of magnanimity when perpetrator and victim or relative of victim embraced publicly.

"If it were true that once a murderer always a murderer, then we should have had to shut up shop straightaway. But we believed then, and I hope we still do, that it was possible for people to change for the better, that the worst criminal could become a good and virtuous person."

Appalled

Tutu was not defending Kotzé's alleged acts, saying decent people are rightly appalled at what had happened, and that it was quite right to condemn the "dastardly, barbaric and monstrous" deeds.

He expressed his deep sympathy and condolences to Kotzé's estranged wife and pleaded that people stop calling him a monster.

However, The Star quoted criminologist Dr Jackie de Wet, from the University of Fort Hare, as saying that the chances of someone like Kotzé being rehabilitated and becoming a good and virtuous person - if he did indeed commit the crimes he is charged with - are "very, very slim, almost minuscule".

ANC Women's League protesters outside the Modimolle Magistrate's Court during his appearance last Friday dubbed him a monster. "No human being can do such a thing," said ANCWL Waterberg treasurer Joy Matshoge.

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Comment: On the right side of your screen I have a quote by Tutu that says "we live in a moral universe".  I must admit that over the years that the quote has appeared here I have come to appreciate some what the Arch intends but not nearly enough. 

I think to understand the point of view that Tutu is developing in his letter about Johan Kotzé one must understand the notion of forgiveness through testimony as found in Christian theology.

To a large extent this notion of forgiveness is somewhat re-fashioned in Islam with a sterner view of how forgiveness is approached.  The Qur'an says "God is most gracious and most merciful" indicating repeatedly that the final judgment of forgiveness is the sole province of God.  But Muslims are also commanded to forgive if someone sincerely apologizes and does so in keeping with Qur'anic injunctions.

Despite the approach, the notion of forgiveness is consistent in the three Abrahamic faiths; God judges and forgiveness is dependent on repentance.

This injunction in my thinking is not about morals because God is above morality.  What then is the substance of morality?  How do we become moral?  And, what are moral acts as opposed to immoral acts where sin is expressly not mentioned or motioned.

In the latter question I wonder mostly if someone who thinks that Johan Kotzé should be hung for his alleged crimes would be expressly immoral.  Or, if someone is just indifferent about the human condition does it make that person amoral?

What would Tutu's moral universe mean for people outside of the Abrahamic faiths?  Are Buddhists and Taoists similarly concerned with living in accordance to morals?

I ask these questions even as I begin fashioning an argument for a chapter I am working on that in part focuses on the notion of the nation as a moral community.

I have glossed over the logical sequences of how we arrive at a nation and what it means to be a moral nation but my point is about imbuing the nation with a moral character.

Some might argue Machiavelli would be laughing his ass off at me for even thinking that politics can be fashioned to be anything but raw interests and more so, interest that coalesce around power. 

But such a reading is a thin understanding of Machiavelli and it probably owes its distortion to latter day realists who want to use his thinking to remove ideals and ethics from political interests.

My reading of Machiavelli is that he privileged the notion of interests where it could be determined as positive - in other words the Prince is supposed to secure known interests that are good/beneficial.

So, what if morality and ethics and forgiveness are indeed known/good interests that secure the power of the state?  Would it then not be logical for the Prince to guard and expand these interests?

If the state is fashioned to be a moral arbiter then the interest of the Prince would be concerned with morals, no?

Still, the question of what is meant by moral versus immoral remains a matter of speculation unless you enter into the framed thinking of Tutu.  It is clear to see what he means by morals in the case of Johan Kotzé.

It is not for the press and the many many folks who sit around to judge this man as a "monster" devoid of good and the ability to repent because Tutu's moral universe is defined by the morality of redemption.

Step outside of that construct and the issue of morality becomes unclear again.  How would Zoroastrianism - another monotheistic religion - view the dastardly acts of  Johan Kotzé, for example?

As I read Tutu's letter it dawned on me that he has made a classical mistake in reasoning.  It is impossible to know whether a "monster" is moral or amoral since there is no such thing as a "monster".

We cannot just assume, as I expect most do, that animals are closest to what we mean when we point to a monster.

Are we sure that animals do not have a sense of morality or at the very least they act in terms of what Machiavelli would consider right action?

I have never come across a dog or cat, for example, that gets up in the morning with the express intention of just f*cking up other dogs and cats for no other reason other than being an immoral bad ass or "monster".

Even animals reason beyond such stupidity it would seem.  So why would they even need to be moral or immoral?

My point is that the issue of morality is a construction that must be interpreted and contextualized by interests.

If you remove the relationship to God or organized religion at the very least then the dog/cat who just goes about its business may in fact be described as moral.  What about the female dog who will allow other puppies from another female to suckle?  Is that a moral act?

But even where morals are connected to God or organized religion the judgment of what is moral or immoral is hardly a given.

Very few Americans will call Geroge W. Bush and Barack Obama murderous immoral monsters and they are responsible for the death of many many more people than Johan Kotzé will ever be able to kill with his bare hands.

Yet some of the very same people who extol the virtues of forgiveness and redemption in religion see the wars "over there" as moral crusades.  In fact this coming election in the US will be dramatized by those who think Jesus has endowed them with the right to make this judgment.

Are these people monsters or moral Christians or amoral animals?

It depends on where you are standing I suppose - I know the relativist position is usually a cop-out but what else is there when you make a detached judgment on morality.

For me, morals are constructions and they must be understood within the context they are framed.  Tutu is moralizing from the point of view of a Christian and his reasoning is relative to that.

In the end the courts may declare a mistrial in this case because Johan Kotzé is found to be legally insane and incapable of knowing what he was doing and its consequences.

The issue of his morality won't fade away even if this is the case.  But we should not confuse its persistence with the insistence that morality in any framed context tells us what is universally right and what is wrong.

It really depends on where you stand - and how you frame the notion of morals and morality.

Onward!