Evaluating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2001 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stanley
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Developmental Change ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Level

Following a negotiated transition to democracy in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established to deal with crimes of the past regime. Despite the detail of submissions and the length of the Final Report, this article highlights the partiality of truth recognised by the Commission. The usefulness of acknowledged truth to deal with South Africa's past is shown to have been neutralised by wider concerns of social and criminal justice. In detailing the governmental reticence to provide reparations, the judicial disregard to pursue prosecutions, and the dismissal of responsibility for apartheid at a wider social level, the author argues that opportunities for reconciliation and developmental change are limited. Against the problems of crime, violence and unresolved land issues, the potential of the TRC to build a ‘reconciliatory bridge’ is called into question. The truth offered by the Commission increasingly appears of limited value.

scholarly journals Khoisan Identity: A Contribution towards Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Stephanus Klaasen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Significant Period ◽  
Fixed Boundaries ◽  
Or History

This article seeks to explore the identity of the Khoisan as symbolic for reconciliation in South Africa. What contributions can the narrative of a marginalised people such as the Khoisan make to reconciling a divided nation such as South Africa? The Khoisan have been victims of continuous dispossession since the arrival of Bartholomew Diaz at the Cape in 1488. However, it was the taking of land in 1657 from the Khoisan for the free burgers that marked a significant period for the current discourse on land and for identity and reconciliation within post-apartheid South Africa. Notwithstanding the attempts by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to use narratives for healing, restoration, and continuing engagement with the meta-narratives of the past, my own use of narrative is open-ended with space for dialogue through interaction. The past or history does not have fixed boundaries, but rather blurred boundaries that function as spaces of transcendence. The narrative approach has four interactionist variables which are personhood, communication, power as reflected experience, and fluid community. I point out weaknesses of the use of narrative by the TRC as well as the interaction between experience and theory by practical theologians to construct an open-ended narrative of the Khoisan for reconciliation in South Africa.  

scholarly journals "We Never Did Return": Migration, Materiality and Time in Penny Siopis' Post-Apartheid Art

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 45-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison K. Young
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Return Migration ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Medium Specificity ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Related Object

This article explores “migration” as both theme and operation in two works by the South African artist Penny Siopis, each created in the year 1997: the artist’s first film, My Lovely Day, and a related object installation entitled Reconnaissance (1900-1997). In each work, Siopis traces the course of her grandmother’s emigration from Europe to Africa through a variety of found, collected, or inherited components that bore witness to the longue durée of imperialism and Apartheid. Mediating between national, cultural, and familial narratives, these works are inherently archaeological in nature, and allowed viewers at the time to reflect on the multiple entangled histories that comprised the post-Apartheid condition. The late nineties in South Africa were defined by the conclusion of Apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and two major biennale exhibitions of contemporary art. The decade thusly saw a stream of collective efforts to both unearth the past and envision the future, marking a time of great cultural, artistic, political, and discursive transition. Mapping questions of medium-specificity and affect over this larger context, I investigate Siopis’ use and manipulation of historical traces as well as notions of contemporaneity and temporality in her art.

scholarly journals Post-Colonial Historical Practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Nurse
Keyword(s):  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Historical Practices

This article suggests that historical practice in Canada is in the process of changing as a result of national and international developments, such as Black Lives Matter, Rhodes Must Fall, and the final report and recommendations of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A key part of this process has been the reconsideration of Canadian narrative frameworks, but it also involves debates surrounding commemorative practices and other innovations in exhibition and display. This shift creates an opportunity to revisit the moral nature of historical narratives, Indigenous conceptions of the importance of the past, the authority of professional historians, and the place of community-engaged historical research. Cet article suggère que les pratiques historiques au Canada sont en train de changer sous l’effet de développements nationaux et internationaux tels que Black Lives Matter, Rhodes Must Fall, et le rapport final et les recommandations de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada. La reconsidération de cadres narratifs canadiens est une partie clé de ce processus, lequel comporte en outre des débats sur les pratiques commémoratives et sur d’autres innovations relatives aux expositions et installations. Ce changement présente l’occasion de réexaminer la nature morale des narrations historiques, les conceptions autochtones sur l’importance du passé, l’autorité des historiens professionnels, et la place d’une recherche historique qui soit engagée au niveau communautaire.

Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, 1995 (South Africa)

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-231 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Full Disclosure ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Political Objective

In July 1995 this long-awaited Act was signed into law. Its Preamble states that it is: “To provide for the investigation and establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights committed during the period from 1 March 1960 to the cut-off date contemplated in the Constitution, within or without the Republic, emanating from the conflicts of the past, and the fate or whereabouts of the victims of such violations; the granting of amnesty to persons who make full disclosure of acts associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past during the said period; affording victims an opportunity to relate the violations they suffered; the taking of measures aimed at the granting of reparation to, and the rehabilitation and the restoration of the human and civil dignity of, victims of violations of human rights; reporting to the Nation about such violations and victims; the making of recommendations aimed at the prevention of the commission of gross violations of human rights; and for the said purposes to provide for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Committee on Human Rights Violations, a Committee on Amnesty and a Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation…”

scholarly journals Declining ethnic relations in post-war Liberia: The transmission of violent memories

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (910) ◽  
pp. 151-171
Author(s):  
Aaron Weah
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Collective Remembering ◽  
Post War

AbstractMore than ten years after the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its Final Report, there has been no implementation of the recommendations proffered. This article focuses on post-conflict memorialization, the TRC's strategy to engender collective remembering, and a set of State-led actions designed to teach future generations about the past violence with a view to preventing relapse into violent conflict. Both the constructive and destructive patterns of remembering that have evolved in the wake of the government's silence since the release of the recommendations will be analyzed.

WHEN INDEMNITY BECOMES DISDAINFUL: REVENGE AS METAPHOR FOR ‘UNFINISHED BUSINESSES’ IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICAN DRAMA

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-83
Author(s):  
Busuyi Mekusi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Government ◽  
Past Wrongs

Revenge, as an instance of oppositionality, typifies past wrongs, evils, violations and disregard for human dignity which have been imputed and for which the offender must be reprimanded. The foregoing sequence is remindful of the dastardly apartheid dispensation in South Africa, which is a strong metaphor for strife and ‘ruptured’ human interactions. While the transition of South Africa to constitutionality was substantially heralded by the negotiating preponderances of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a number of people have adjudged the TRC to be a mere attempt to draw a curtain on the past - in sharp contrast to the spirit and letter of the commission. By so doing, there is a popular opinion that there are still some ‘unfinished business’ that ironically link the present with the past. Therefore, it is considered a ‘must’ that these ‘silences’ be addressed in order for the present and future of South Africa not to be intractably burdened by the past. Bhekizizwe Peterson’s and Ramadan Suleman’s Zulu Love Letter (both film and scripted play) has joined this discourse by artistically amplifying the need for an engagement with these ‘deafening silences’. It is in the light of the aforementioned that this article investigates the process of wrong and attempts by the hegemony to expiate such wrongs, in the context of impervious agents, who disregard the processes for peaceful engagements, but rather scorn and threaten victims of their vicious actions for daring to seek justice. The article sees such a repudiation of one’s evil act and the conciliatory stance of the government as capable of breeding revenge. However, the article concludes that when medicated, using certain cultural and religious beliefs, the bleeding heart that is prone to seeking revenge or retaliation (vengeance) might also be a carrier of forgiveness and collectivism.

scholarly journals Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: the role of the faith communities

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
P G J Meiring
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Past

Ten years after the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission commenced with its work (1995), the author – using the statements made by representatives of the different faith communities in South Africa – analyses the role the communities played in the past: as agents of oppression, as victims of apartheid, as opponents of apartheid, as well as their role in the country’s transition to a new democratic society. Finally, the contribution of the faith communities in the process of reconciliation and nation building is discussed.

South Africa's morality tale for our time

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADRIAN GUELKE
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Public Hearings ◽  
Desmond Tutu

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report: Five Volumes, Basingstoke and Oxford, Macmillan, 1999On 29 October 1998 Archbishop Desmond Tutu presented the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to President Nelson Mandela. This massive report has now been published by Macmillan in a handsome, extensively illustrated five-volume set. The fine quality of the production would seem appropriate to what has been hailed as a document of lasting importance for South Africa. Indeed, it is evident that many foreign commentators see it as important not just for South Africa but for the whole world. That has been reflected in the interest shown in the TRC by commentators, such as Timothy Garton Ash and Michael Ignatieff, who have not previously written about South Africa. The report was the culmination of nearly three years of work by the TRC. President Mandela announced the names of the 17 commissioners (designating Desmond Tutu as chairperson and Alex Boraine as deputy chairperson) in November 1995. It began to function in December that year, while the first public hearings were held on 15 April 1996. However, while the report has been the most significant product of the TRC's endeavours, it is not the end of its work. In particular, the Committee on Amnesty will continue to function until it has reached decisions on all the outstanding applications for amnesty received by the deadline of 30 September 1997. When it has completed this task a further volume of the final report will be published.

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