In August 2007, an Iraqi delegation visited Denmark and a hearing was held in the Danish Parliament. The topic was the role of religion in relation to reconciliation in Iraq and the delegation was led by the Anglican vicar Andrew White who has for some years been involved in peace-work in Iraq and the Middle East. The hearing was plagued by the usual problems of simultaneous translation and minds, or maybe just mine, started to drift. Yet, near the end, a member of the audience asked the panel to elaborate their perspectives on Desmond Tutu's famous statement that, as one speaker put it, “there can be no future without reconciliation.” Of course, what Tutu has written and proclaimed on numerous occasions is something different and more controversial, namely that there can be no future without forgiveness (Tutu, 1999). What was interesting to me was not the misquotation as such, but the fact that the topic of forgiveness had not been mentioned a single time during the hearing – not even by the vicar, who otherwise jested and spoke in ways reminiscent of the charismatic performances of his much more well-known Anglican fellow. […]