scholarly journals Anagnorisis (processing forgiveness): The mystical praxis-space of diaconal reaching out to the Other/others (the hopeful case of Joseph and his brothers)

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniël J. Louw
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Other ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Mode Of Life

The following question is at stake: What entails forgiveness and reconciliation within processes of healing regarding schisms in a very diverse and polarised society? Despite the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the burning question that still prevails: What is meant by a praxis of forgiveness and a spirituality of reconciliation within a post-apartheid dispensation? It is argued that forgiving and reconciling are not instant or merely ‘handsome pardoning’. Both are embedded in processes of reaching out to the pain and hurt of the other. As a process, forgiveness starts with self-acknowledgement and should manifest in modes of compassionate being-with and diaconal acts of reaching out, creating spaces of ‘mystical encounters’. In this regard, the notion of anagnorisis, as captured by narrating the encounter between Joseph and his brothers, should be read as an exemplification of reconciliation, directed by the missio Dei, promissio Dei and passio Dei. Within a Christian paradigm, Ernst Bloch’s notion of docta spes, very aptly captures the core of pastoral, reconciliatory care: Hope care to the human soul (nēphēsh) – the search for life and meaning. ‘Dum spiro – spero’ [While I Breathe, I Hope].Contribution: It is often the case that reconciliation is viewed as an instant event. The case of Joseph and his brothers illustrates the fact that reconciliation is in fact a mode of life, embedded over many years. In this way, reconciliation could be rendered as part of one’s life story; as a mode of journeying through life, exemplifying the how of authentic human encounters. Reconciliation then becomes an ontic feature of relational integrity and indication of the quality of the human soul: Habitus as feeling from the hurt being of the other.

scholarly journals Het Suggereren van Verzoening Tijdens de Hoorzittingen van de Waarheids- en Verzoeningscommissie

Afrika Focus ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Annelies Verdoolaege
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Other ◽  
The South ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
African Context ◽  
The One

Suggesting reconciliation at the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) took place under unique circumstances and in a very particular historical context. This article will explore how such a specific kind of reality gave rise to a specific kind of discourse, a so-called ‘reconciliation discourse’. On the one hand, this discourse offered the apartheid victims a lot of opportunities regarding linguistic expression. On the other hand, though, this discourse was also regimented and limited to a certain extent. By means of fragments from the TRC victim testimonies, this article will deal with one aspect of this linguistic manipulation, namely the introduction of the concept of reconciliation. In the first part of the article, I will explain which linguistic methods were used during the TRC hearings in order to emphasize the notion of reconciliation in the narratives of the testifying victims. In doing so, a lot of attention will be paid to the concrete interaction between the testifiers and the TRC commissioners. In a second part, I will try to investigate why the construction of this specific reconciliation discourse was necessary in the South African context. We will see that, amongst others, also political considerations played a role in the control exercised over the discourse of the TRC victims. In this way, we will understand that the reconciliation discourse of the Commission was a reflection of a very ambiguous social attitude: this discourse had to reveal as much as possible about the apartheid past – and this in a manner as spontaneous, as transparent and as open as possible -, but it also had to be adapted to certain socio-political needs. This will tell us that also a quasi-judicial institution such as the TRC involves an inevitable interplay between language on the one hand and ideology and society on the other.

scholarly journals The ‘other’ side of history as depicted in Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows

Literator ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
M. Wenzel
Keyword(s):  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Other ◽  
Isabel Allende ◽  
Testimonial Literature ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
And Gender

The proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa have once again foregrounded the trauma involved in reconstructing a past fraught with political and personal violence and have, at the same time, also illustrated the therapeutic quality of testimony. Literature has always played a vital role in the process of coming to terms with reality. As a woman within a postcolonial context, Isabel Allende bears witness to political oppression and gender discrimination in her novels. They serve as examples of testimonial literature which focus on the plight of women as marginalized citizens and represent a collective conscience in testimony to the atrocities of the past. This is accomplished through the interaction of her fictional characters with a recognizable historical context. In Of Love and Shadows, her female protagonist, Irene, asserts her individuality through writing/reporting which questions the validity of the male-oriented and so-called “objective” historical reportage. By creating disparate and complementary perspectives which accentuate the female/personal as well as the male/public aspects of experience, Allende proposes a recognition of the personal and the peripheral in the documentation of historical events; she underlines the validity of the “other” side of experience and history.

When the Landscape of the Face is Hidden from Us

2017 ◽  
pp. 68-71
Author(s):  
Paula Horta
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Affective Quality ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Ethical Response ◽  
Desmond Tutu

How do we respond to the vulnerability of the Other when we do not see his face? How do photographer and viewers position themselves ethically in relation to the (hi)story of suffering they are called to witness? These are the questions that steer my reflection about Jillian Edelstein’s unpublished photograph of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Taken shortly after the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) completed its work, the photograph evokes the moment during the TRC hearings when the Archbishop, Chairman of the commission, laid down his head and wept. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’s conceptualization of “the face”; I discuss how affect is produced within and through Edelstein’s photograph, and specifically how the affective quality of the photograph both contributes to an understanding of the experience of suffering within the context of the TRC and summons an ethical response from the viewer. Keywords: Desmund Tutu, Emmanuel Levinas, gesture and photography, Jillian Edelstein, photography portrait

scholarly journals Introduction

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Bell ◽  
Hadley Friedland
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Many

The articles in this special issue all take up some of the many challenges and opportunities that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) identified as crucial for reconciliation in its 2015 Final Report. Some engage with the current Canadian political and legal system’s impact on Indigenous peoples, while others acknowledge these but focus more on the enduring principles and possibilities of Indigenous legal traditions and the potential for operationalizing jurisdictional spaces for implementation. All speak to the importance of developing a narrative and understanding of intergenerational responsibility and relationality at the core of any enduring reconciliation.

Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: navigating the different visions for indigenizing the Canadian Academy

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 218-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Gaudry ◽  
Danielle Lorenz
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Other ◽  
Universities And Colleges ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Canadian Universities ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation

Following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, Canadian universities and colleges have felt pressured to indigenize their institutions. What “indigenization” has looked like, however, has varied significantly. Based on the input from an anonymous online survey of 25 Indigenous academics and their allies, we assert that indigenization is a three-part spectrum. On one end is Indigenous inclusion, in the middle reconciliation indigenization, and on the other end decolonial indigenization. We conclude that despite using reconciliatory language, post-secondary institutions in Canada focus predominantly on Indigenous inclusion. We offer two suggestions of policy and praxis— treaty-based decolonial indigenization and resurgence-based decolonial indigenization—to demonstrate a way toward more just Canadian academy.

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.

Using African Truth and Reconciliation Commission documentation for truth telling and reconciliation

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Proscovia Svärd
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commissions ◽  
Reconciliation Process

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) are established to document violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in post-conflict societies. The intent is to excavate the truth to avoid political speculations and create an understanding of the nature of the conflict. The documentation hence results in a common narrative which aims to facilitate reconciliation to avoid regression to conflict. TRCs therefore do a tremendous job and create compound documentation that includes written statements, interviews, live public testimonies of witnesses and they also publish final reports based on the accumulated materials. At the end of their mission, TRCs recommend the optimal use of their documentation since it is of paramount importance to the reconciliation process. Despite this ambition, the TRCs’ documentation is often politicized and out of reach for the victims and the post-conflict societies at large. The TRCs’ documentation is instead poorly diffused into the post conflict societies and their findings are not effectively disseminated and used.

The Triumph of Olemaun: Survivance, Empathic Unsettlement, and Restorying the History of Canadian Residential Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-146
Author(s):  
Anah-Jayne Markland
Keyword(s):  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Mandatory Education ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Age Appropriate

The ignorance of many Canadians regarding residential schools and their traumatic legacy is emphasised in the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a foundational obstacle to achieving reconciliation. Many of the TRC's calls to action involve education that dispels and corrects this ignorance, and the commission demands ‘age-appropriate curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples' historical and contemporary contributions to Canada’ to be made ‘a mandatory education requirement for Kindergarten to Grade Twelve students’ (Calls to Action 62.i). How to incorporate the history of residential schools in kindergarten and early elementary curricula has been much discussed, and one tool gaining traction is Indigenous-authored picturebooks about Canadian residential schools. This article conducts a close reading of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton's picturebook When I Was Eight (2013). The picturebook gathers Indigenous and settler children together to contest master settler narratives regarding the history of residential schools. Using Gerald Vizenor's concept of ‘survivance’ and Dominick LaCapra's notion of ‘empathic unsettlement’, the article argues that picturebooks work to unsettle young readers empathetically as part of restorying settler myths about residential schools and implicating young readers in the work of reconciliation.

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