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Q: If a timetable was developed, setting down the steps and times for practical equality for all South Africans, what would be acceptable to you?

A: The first thing would be for the government to declare unequivocally that they intend to dismantle apartheid, and there should be no games about that. They should lift the state of emergency; remove the troops from the black townships; release political prisoners and detainees; allow exiles to return home; and so create the right climate for negotiation. And then, say they intend to speak to those who are recognized as the authentic representatives of every section of our community.

Q: What kind of a black government would you propose for South Africa? Does any black African country offer a governmental model for an adequate black-ruled South Africa?

A: We don't speak about black governments. You've heard me speak about a truly democratic South Africa where all of the people of South Africa would choose the government that they want. This whole business of "black governments" that perhaps don't do too well... I think that if we wanted to engage in point-scoring you might say something like, "There aren't any blacks in Ulster; there were no blacks in Nazi Germany; even the birthplace of democracy, Greece, has had government by colonels." We don't usually refer very favorably to, for instance, the Mugabe government, that they came out of the bush and have run, and run very well, one of the most sophisticated bureaucracies around, and people hardly ever refer to those. And our history is woefully inadequate: our historical memories are not very good about how other governments, white governments, have not done too well.

We would like a government in South Africa that is one that seeks to put into practice what we have in the Freedom Charter, which was accepted by the most representative grouping in South Africa in l955 - a compassionate government, a caring government, one that would ensure that we have a sharing kind of society.

Q: Bishop Tutu, you have recently been quoted as saying that violence can be a viable alternative when the moral tone of a society drops to an unacceptable level. At what point would you feel that violent change would be fitting in order to bring about true democracy in South Africa, and how do you square this opinion with the Christian non-violence and your receipt of the l984 Nobel Peace Prize?

A: Well, it's no use saying that I haven't said that it's a viable alternative when the moral tone falls . . . I have said - and this is a position of the Church: the position of the Church is that oppression is an evil, war is an evil, but that there comes a time when it would be justifiable to go to war. Otherwise, Christians would not have gone to war against Nazism. And you are given a set of criteria where you determine, is this a situation where you have to choose a lesser evil?

I have said all along, I am not a pacifist: I am a peace-lover and I will work as much as I can for peace and for non-violence. But, for goodness sake, if people could bear in mind that the primary violence in our country, the primary terrorism in our country, is the terrorism of apartheid; that violence is not something that is introduced from outside into South Africa; that our people have striven to use non-violent means.

Our people were protesting peacefully against the past laws, and on the 21st of March, l960, 69 of our people were killed by the South African government, and most of those were shot in the back running away. In l976, our children, tired of the inferior education they receive, were protesting peacefully, singing in the streets, and our children were mowed down by the South African government. Five hundred people were killed. And you know what has happened to people when they are detained without trial. You know certainly about Steve Biko. They bashed his brains out in jail, and then carried him, when he was comatose, naked on the back of a Jeep, for 800 miles from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria.

Actually, our people are peace-loving to a fault. The only two South Africans to win Nobel Peace Prizes are both black.

Q: Bishop Tutu, how do your policies compare with Nelson Mandela's? Why is he in jail and you are free? Would the freeing of Mandela lessen the black South Africans' unrest?

A: We have the same dream for our country. We want a free, non-racial, just and democratic South Africa, and that's been the dream of the ANC, and all of our people, basically. Nelson went to jail because there came a time, in his view, that it was necessary to use violence - it was sabotage, in fact, that they were using, against installations, not against persons.

It's a good thing that you people here might remember that the state president of South Africa, P.W. Botha, belonged to an organization called the Ossewabrandwag, which was a pro-Nazi organization; and he was interned for his Nazi sympathies. Many people have forgotten that. Like most Afrikaners, your president needs a lesson in history, because your president says that these Afrikaners stood by you in World War II. That's nonsense. The people who fought were our people. Blacks went to war with Asegais, against Rommel's Desert Rats. Most Afrikaners were supporters of the Nazis; and today they are lauded to the skies. They are the ones who try to teach us about patriotism.

Q: Bishop Tutu, is God alive and well in South Africa?

A: It is God's world, and He is thoroughly in charge. Sometimes we wish He could make it more obvious that He was.

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