Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, formerly archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, is the author of multiple books, including “God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time” and “No Future Without Forgiveness.” He discussed human rights and other global issues with foreign-affairs columnist John C. Bersia.

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Question: As you contemplate global challenges, what is foremost in your mind?

Answer: I am obviously as concerned as everybody about the economic meltdown. It shows more clearly than anything else that we are interconnected. To put it differently, we are really family. You also see it with something like climate change. The way I behave here in South Africa has consequences for someone, say, in the Pacific Islands. And, yes, I worry about conflicts in so many parts of the world.

Q: Are we better or worse off than we were a decade ago?

A: Actually, it is not all doom and gloom. I am amazed at the goodness of people. In the last year or so, I went to Darfur in Sudan. The situation there is horrendous, and yet the people are able to love. They speak about the resilience of the human spirit. I was also so struck by the humanitarian workers who were, in many cases, returning for their second or third mission.

Q: Still, we continue to have terrible human-rights problems. Why?

A: We could have been created as automatons, yet we were created to be persons with free will. We can even use our freedom to commit some of the most horrible atrocities. This is because God does not wish to undermine the gift that has been given to us. Thus, it is possible for us to perpetrate the Holocaust in Germany, genocide in Rwanda, and other awfulness in the Middle East, Burma, Tibet, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Q: Where have we seen the most improvement?

A: In the matter of the rights of women. Previously, people could be blatantly sexist, macho and paternalistic. Now, more and more, in the language that we use, people are a great deal more sensitive. We are also aware of it in the roles that women are increasingly able to play, such as in the church and public life. You now have your third secretary of state who is a woman. And you did not think it was unusual for Hillary (Rodham Clinton) to want to run for president. In addition, we are more and more aware of the significance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which refers to all persons, regardless of race, gender and so forth.

Q: And the least?

A: In the whole matter of sharing the good things of this Earth, the way that wealth is still the preserve of a very few. We see it in the levels of poverty that we have in far too many countries. They give rise to all kinds of other problems. So many children die unnecessarily because they have no access to cheap, affordable inoculations. So many people live on less than a dollar a day. As a result, we are globally sort of sitting on a powder keg.

Q: What inspires you in this world?

A: The essential goodness of people. I mentioned Burma earlier. Now, one of the first things you think of in Burma is the awfulness of a military junta that could actually stop relief that was being directed for the benefit of people who were suffering from (a powerful cyclone in 2008). The edge the people have there is the light of (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) Aung San Suu Kyi, a gentle, beautiful woman. Soldiers, armed to the teeth, are scared of a woman who is not armed at all but who is good.

And just look at Iran. The people there know that they have a brutal regime, yet they stand up to it, they demonstrate. I am exhilarated by all such examples of goodness. This is why you and I are so upset when we see instances of evil. If evil were the norm, you and I might be annoyed by it, but we would usually just shrug our shoulders. Instead, we are saying no. This wrong is not the norm. It is not right to abuse women. It is not right to treat others as if they were less than who they are people of infinite worth in the sight of God.

Desmond Tutu can be reached at tamu@tutu.org.za.