The Chronicle interview.

• Position: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu - Interview

Without a new, strengthened ethical conscience, says Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in this conversation with the UN Chronicle, "we are for the birds. The Archbishop, who was in New York for the release of the United Nations study on the impact of armed conflict on children - with which he was associated - spoke to us over the telephone soon after his return to Cape Town in December.

While long in coming, the dramatic demise of apartheid brought with it non-racial democracy. South Africa now has a new constitution that is described by many as the most liberal in the world. Your Grace, I would like to ask you in what ways international pressure, public opinion and the United Nations helped in bringing about this change?

Well, international pressure was absolutely crucial. Without it, what happened to this country would have been impossible. The United Nations [helped] through the many resolutions that were passed - culminating in the ones condemning apartheid as a crime against humanity, the resolutions about the arms embargo, the suspending of the membership of South Africa in the General Assembly. All of these helped to bring very considerable pressure to bear on the apartheid Government and its supporters; and, as I said in the beginning, without that help, without the support of the international community, without the United Nations helping to mobilize that support, we would not be where we are. We just want to express our profound gratitude for that support.

Have there been tangible effects from those efforts, in particular those of the United Nations, on individuals in South Africa?

Well, the fact of bringing about a democratic "dispensation" after you had a repressive one would be the most tangible. I do know that the United Nations helped in the provision of, for instance, scholarships to many South African exiles and refugees, which also had a very considerable impact on the lives of individuals. Just the fact of helping to isolate a maverick regime would already have been a very considerable achievement.

You are both a religious and a civil leader. Under the apartheid system, you were able to gain the respect of the international community and important leaders on all sides in South Africa. You've been crucial in helping steer your country through its transition to a non-racial democracy. How have these different roles - religious, spiritual and civil - helped you in your efforts then and now?

I hope that in all I have tried to do, I have been informed by my faith. I haven't said or done anything that could not be based firmly on my Christian understanding of a situation. And, therefore, I have not suffered from any sense of a kind of schizophrenia that now I was operating as a religious person and another time as a political animal. It has all been integrated, because our faith is an incarnational faith. What I do, what I say, is a direct consequence of the faith, insofar as I understand the Christian faith, and I would not have been myself able to do all of these things had it not been for that fundamental backing. I...