Logos-Pharmakon

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Barbara Cassin
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Dramatic Performance

Pointing to the ambivalence of pharmakon as both poison and remedy, this chapter explores the long tradition of the curative or reparative powers of language, from the sophists through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-apartheid South Africa. The extended reading of Gorgias’sEncomium of Helen shows his dramatic performance as “the first pharmaceutical performance,” since as he talks he produces a new, eternally praiseworthy Helen. Likewise, the TRC is read as a form of psychoanalysis at the level of the nation which is inscribed within a tradition of discursive therapy that goes from sophistry to psychoanalysis, via catharsis. It is less concerned with truth as “the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” whether it be historical, judicial or individual, but in producing “enough truth” to build the rainbow nation.

Disappointed Remains: Trauma, Testimony, and Reconciliation in Post-apartheid South Africa

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Field
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Trauma Survivors ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Apartheid Regime ◽  
Democratic Elections

The apartheid regime in South Africa and the fight against the same, followed by the reconciliation is the crux of this article. The first democratic elections held on April 27, 1994, were surprisingly free of violence. Then, in one of its first pieces of legislation, the new democratic parliament passed the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act of 1995, which created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. At the outset, the South African TRC promised to “uncover the truth” about past atrocities, and forge reconciliation across a divided country. As oral historians, we should consider the oral testimonies that were given at the Human Rights Victim hearings and reflect on the reconciliation process and what it means to ask trauma survivors to forgive and reconcile with perpetrators. This article cites several real life examples to explain the trauma and testimony of apartheid and post-apartheid Africa with a hint on the still prevailing disappointments and blurred memories.

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

Reconciliation in the Public Domain

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 412-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eddy Van der Borght
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Religious Symbol ◽  
The Public ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

Reconciliation shifted in South Africa during the transition from being a contested idea in the church struggle to a notion proposed and rejected by the fighting parties and finally embraced by the two main political protagonists when they reached an agreement on the transition to a democratic order. This article analyses the layered meaning of the reconciliation concept within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. On the basis of this description the questions that will be explored are whether reconciliation functioned as a religious symbol at the trc, and if so, in what way. In the conclusion, the way the concept of reconciliation itself was transformed due to the role it played in the transition in South Africa will be summarized and the consequences for theological research will be indicated.

‘I Was Those Thousands!’: Memory, Identity and Space in John Kani'sNothing But the Truth

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-84
Author(s):  
SHANE GRAHAM
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Spatial Configurations

John Kani'sNothing But the Truth(2002) dramatizes South Africa's collective confrontation with its traumatic past – played out on the public stage most visibly in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings – through the personal situation of Sipho Makhaya and his family. This essay analyses the obstacles Sipho and his daughter face in their attempts to negotiate new identities within the shifting social and physical geographies of post-apartheid South Africa. Identities in the apartheid era were rooted in specific places and socio-spatial configurations that are now being radically and rapidly transformed; Kani's play implies that this transitional moment in the country's history provides the opportunity to rewrite the codes that determine the ways that space is produced and used, and in the process to alter the ways that people form identities and memories in relation to both social space and other people.

scholarly journals The knowledge and perceptions of history students of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Oelofse ◽  
A Oosthuysen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
The University

Using the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC) and the concept of reconciliation as a case study, the article attempts to assess the knowledge and understanding of the registered undergraduate history students at the University of the Free State’s main campus about the TRC and the concept and process of reconciliation in the country at large. The research will firstly assess whether the younger generation of students, specifically students taking history as a subject, have any knowledge of such a significant and contemporary event in South African historiography as the TRC process. Secondly, in relation to the aims and recommendations of the TRC and against the background of reconciliation efforts in the country, to perceive the views and thoughts of undergraduate history students on the progress in reconciliation endeavours in South Africa. As a result, a sample of 128 undergraduate history students was randomly selected to complete a quantitative questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of both closed and open-ended questions. Group interviews, as a qualitative research method, were added and used to conduct interviews with 16 undergraduate history students selected randomly and answers were recorded. Accordingly, an explanatory mixed- method research method approach was employed by implementing both the qualitative and quantitative method.

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.  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document