Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the misallocation of resources towards military spending instead of addressing basic human needs like food and education.
Desmond Tutu's quote critiques the global priorities of nations, arguing that while vast sums are wasted on military arms and defense budgets amidst insecurity, significant portions of that spending could instead alleviate poverty and provide essential services such as education and basic nutrition. Tutu emphasizes the moral responsibility to foster conditions that allow all individuals, referred to as 'God's children', to live fulfilling lives rather than succumbing to the destructive cycle of violence and neglect.
In practice
In a speech advocating for humanitarian aid, one might say, 'As Desmond Tutu pointed out, the funds spent on military might could transform lives through education and food security.'
The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions
As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greateer instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.
Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.
Gaza is going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.
The rule of law bakes no bread, it is unable to distribute loaves or fishes (it has none), and it cannot protect itself against external assault, but it remains the most civilized and least burdensome conception of a state yet to be devised.
A great safeguard is the entire faith, the true faith, in which neither anything whatever can be added by anyone nor anything taken away; for, unless faith be one, it is not the faith.
Human kind cannot bear much reality.
Silence is letting what there is be what it is. In that sense it has to do profoundly with God: the silence of simply being. We experience that at times when there is nothing we can say or do that would not intrude on the integrity and the beauty of that being.
He had fought back with every weapon in his arsenal, being alternatively obtuse, evasive and pedantic, for it was wonderful how you could obscure an emotional issue by appearing to seek precision.
Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
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