Conflict Reconciliation amongst Diverse Populations: An Anthropological Analysis of the Role of Christianity and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa’s Path to Democracy

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-246
Author(s):  
Björn Bergström
Keyword(s):  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Diverse Populations ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Conflict Reconciliation

scholarly journals Truth and reconciliation in South Africa: Hindu experiences and concerns

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
P.G.J. Meiring
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
The South ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Hindu Community ◽  
The Way

The author who served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), focuses on the Hindu experience in South Africa during the apartheid years. At a special TRC Hearing for Faith Communities (East London, 17-19 November 1997) two submissions by local Hindu leaders were tabled. Taking his cues from those submissions, the author discusses four issues: the way the Hindu community suffered during these years, the way in which some members of the Hindu community supported the system of apartheid, the role of Hindus in the struggle against apartheid, and finally the contribution of the Hindu community towards reconciliation in South Africa. In conclusion some notes on how Hindus and Christians may work together in th

Healing Painful Memories through Storytelling Cultivated by Vivid Images of Remembrance in Liturgy: Why the Liturgical Acts of the TRC (SA-1996) Did Not Produce the Healing Expected

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-151
Author(s):  
Ferdi P. Kruger ◽  
Ben J. De Klerk
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Holy Communion ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Worship Service ◽  
African Context

This article elucidates the idea that opportunities for remembrance should be cultivated within liturgy. No participant within liturgy enters a worship service as a tabula rasa. People enter the worship service with all kinds of memories, some of which may be painful memories of the past while others may be good memories. People’s memories could influence their participation in liturgy profoundly. The following research question was identified: What is the role of storytelling cultivated by vivid images of liturgy in healing painful memories in a post-TRC South Africa? The authors contextualize this idea by scrutinizing the praxis within a South African context nearly 25 years after the activities of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the memories around it continue to be critically interrogated. The authors’ main focus is the communicative-liturgical approach that the TRC adhered to and why this approach seems to demonstrate shortcomings. This article examines the idea that the choice to remember will always be an ongoing process, mainly because a faith community is a remembering community. Three aspects are linked in a three-stroke relationship, namely liturgy, remembrance, and storytelling. Inter-disciplinary perspectives on remembrance and storytelling are offered while theological reflection reveals that remembrance and storytelling are interwoven. Two aspects in which remembrance and liturgy are connected, namely Passover and Holy Communion, are scrutinized and it is proposed that the idea of storytelling could be an intriguing aspect for further reflection within a Reformed tradition. We conclude with the idea that people’s memories are in need of editing through the process of remembrance. The telling of stories provides opportunities to do exactly this. We have explored the recognition that South African society needs people that continuously tell their stories of painful memories, while liturgy could cultivate vivid remembrances that will inevitably lead to healing.

The Foundations of Aboriginal Spirituality and Healing from the Perspective of Rogier Vandersteene

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-291
Author(s):  
Earle H. Waugh
Keyword(s):  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Northern Alberta ◽  
The Church

In the light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and the often troubling rush to judgment towards the missionaries by many today, it is well to pause and consider those individuals, flawed as they were, who saw deeper truths in Aboriginal culture than was acknowledged in their day. Consider one known as “Steentje, Little Stone,” in Belgium, and eventually as “Ka Miyohtwat – the good man” among his parishioners. Few Canadian missionaries have had the kind of impact that Roger Vandersteene had upon the Cree of Northern Alberta: he was accorded an extraordinary place in the religious terrain at a time when antagonism towards the role of the Church in residential schools was beginning to swell. This article summarizes some of the key points of his achievement, focusing purposely on his perceptions of his mission and the ramifications for understanding traditional Aboriginal spiritual values. He saw these values expressed most effectively in the close relationship between the spiritual world and the potential for wellness and healing.

scholarly journals APLA and the Amnesty Committee of the TRC? An Ethical Analysis of the Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tshepo Lephakga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
White People ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
White Settlers ◽  
Political Objective ◽  
Desmond Tutu

This article examines the role of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It focuses on the amnesty committee and challenges regarding amnesty applications of members and supporters of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), an armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC). These complications emanated from policies and politics of the mother-body (PAC) and APLA, which made it difficult to distinguish between acts with a political objective committed by bona fide APLA members and purely criminal acts committed for personal gain. Such policies were expressed in: 1) The APLA slogan “One Settler, One Bullet”; and 2) The policy regarding “Repossession of property” by Azanians. The position of APLA needs to be understood against the fundamental politics of the PAC that the presence of white settlers in South Africa (occupied Azania) is an act of occupation, dispossession and colonisation. Thus, all white people in South Africa are regarded as settlers and targets for APLA. This position contends that, as a result of the settler status of all white people in South Africa, everything that they purportedly own belongs to Azanians and must be repossessed. Another complication—according to the TRC—was for some applicants to meet at least one of the requirements for amnesty, since any incident committed had to constitute an act associated with a political objective. Other challenges were lack of documentation to prove membership of APLA, and the autonomy or independence of the mother body (PAC) and its armed wing (APLA).

On our Knees

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Kathleen Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Theoretical Frame ◽  
Personal Fulfillment

Christian ritual dominated the lives of Indigenous children sent to Canadian residential schools for the purpose of cultural assimilation. Drawing on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report (2015), I describe the complex, ambiguous, and often harmful role of Christian liturgical practices in residential schools. I provide a theoretical frame built on the work of Foucault, Asad, and Belcher to explore Christian rituals in residential schools as formative, embodied disciplines that functioned as technologies of power, self, and community. This theoretical frame exposes how religious rituals may unwittingly victimize participants, how the same ritual can be experienced as a harmful imposition by one participant and a source of personal fulfillment by another, and how ritual could be part of an ongoing process of truth-telling and reconciliation.

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