TRC and Process of Reconciliation Juxtaposed to Social Justice

Studying and engaging in discourse around the theory, application and a case study of reconciliation I have been left with a question that has struck my interest from the very beginnings of our studies: to what level does the process and outcome of reconciliation—specifically in terms of South Africa—address social justice and the structural violence issues?

At the initiation and ground surface examination of reconciliation and the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) I was continuously struck by how there was a lack of focus around community needs and issues. It wasn’t until Tuesday the 19th that I realized that the TRC was not constructed or perhaps did not focus on addressing the issues of day-to-day structural violence. In a lecture with professor Zwelethu Jolobe on the transitional justice of reconciliation, we were able to explore how the TRC was more specifically constructed as well as what were some of its limitations. To understand that the TRC was not specifically designed to address injustice on a greater level, specifically around issues of social inequality, made me realize that my understanding of reconciliation in the South African context was misguided. Re-structuring my understanding as well expectations of reconciliation allowed me to see it under a new lens. I now define reconciliation as the active process that exceeds the limits of peace and conflict resolutions and involves the whole community in question not just leaders or political players. It is a process that calls for the deconstruction of psychological binaries and seeks to create a unified yet diverse and inclusive view and stance on several planes from history to the present day. It involves both top down and bottom up organizing and leadership and aims to move forward from past histories of conflict. It also seeks out truth and forgiveness as a process of reconciling past conflict.

Although I recognize that the process of reconciliation plays a very important role on intensive and comprehensive conflict resolution, I am beginning to think that justice is a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it. Without turning towards criticism I want to turn to a focus on what other organizations are working beyond reconciliation and addressing more structural violence as well as social justice issues as a whole. Two organizations that we have been referenced and that I would to showcase here are The Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) and The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR)

CSVR: “aims to contribute to the building of violence-free societies and the promotion of sustainable peace and reconciliation by means of research, advocacy and other interventions and through establishing strategic partnerships with organs of the state, NGOs, community organizations, individuals and international allies.”

IJR: “Justice without reconciliation and reconciliation without justice are both doomed to fail. Our constitution speaks of a “need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimization.”

I am beginning to research both organizations and will report back with more information, but I leave with a pondering question: is there a space to reconstruct the understanding and process of reconciliation outside of conflict resolution and onto a larger plane that further integrates the need for true social justice and the critical importance of addressing the structural violence that creates great social inequality?
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Here are a few pictures from the Township of Langa that we visited and that struck my ideas around social justice, structural violence and reconciliation. The amount of inequality in this country is absolutely intolerable. South Africa is one of the countries (second to Brazil) that holds the greatest health inequality in the world...

Divided Histories and the Essence of a Unified Society

After two bumpy and discomforting flights to Cape Town—and I mean that literally due to cross winds that made our first flight that was hovering over Cape Town divert all the way back to our point of departure (Johannesburg)—I began to breathe sea level oxygen and feel the vibrant history, diversity and ambiance of Cape Town. After a day of settling in, watching a sunset at the waterfront bay and catching up on some course material reading—The Nature of Reconciliation and A Long Walk to Freedom—we began our first day of lectures on the hills of the University of Cape Town (UCT). Eager to further explore the course content I sat impatiently around seminar room 240 in order to engage with the topic of divided history of South Africa. Listening to Professor Elizabeth van Heyningen I quickly realized that the process of revealing and portraying the history of South Africa is a one that plays a crucial role on the process of reconciliation. In recognizing that history and the past lived experiences of a people is the basis for were the present currently stands, it is clear that the recognition of history plays a very important role to the present lives of all South Africans, but what is the history of this nation and how is it told? Having lived in a state of severe segregation in between races it is not a surprise that the history of South Africa is one that is has far too often been divided in its portrayal. The history of native black Africans residing for thousands of years in this land to the history of colonization and Dutch and British struggles to the history of Malay and Indian slaves the history of South Africa is extensive in its diversity.

In the process of reconciliation—within the South African context—there is a very important process of recollecting and unifying the history in order to create a more unified society within the present. In seeing how the history of blacks as well Afrikaners intermingled within one another I began to question the present and how effective acknowledging the divided history has been in terms of creating a more unified society.

Reconciling the past and constantly striving to create a culture and national community around the notion of unification and equality, I was left with a difficult internal process on deciphering where South Africans currently stand around the idea of a unified society. As scholars and students engaged in the stuffy of reconciliation and diversity, it is hard to find a truth or one answer but I was left with a sense of optimism after visiting the area of Bo-Kapp the following day (Tuesday 19th). Bo-Kapp is within the heart of the city of Cape Town as well as the central area were freed-slave populations resided in the 1830 after slavery was abolished. Walking in between hills of streets that paint a structure for the frenzy of vibrant and bright colored houses we began our journey by visiting the very first Mosque built in Cape Town. Sitting on the floor of a beautifully and pristine carpet surrounded by the energy of history and faith, I listened attentively to the story and history of Indian and Malay slaves in Cape Town and South Africa. While listening to dates as well as rich stories of a community exploited for their labor, I began to realize how the concept of a unified society is centralized…within the essence and beauty of inclusivity within a highly diverse community as seen not only South Africa but throughout the world. Through the experiential pedagogy within the program I am able to see how individuals from very diverse personal identities view how they fit into the mass of the society. With the gruesome history of apartheid and racism that built created a space for extreme oppression for people of color, I hold a sense of optimism as people being to see their identities for who they are but more importantly as being South Africans.

“My Blood will nourish the tree which will bear the fruits of freedom…” Solomon Mahlungu

The definition and understanding of resistance has been something that has continuously changed through my travels and studies of the struggles of people throughout the world. Although my concept of resistance and struggle greatly changed when I traveled through Mexico and was able to spend time with families in resistance and in line with the Zapatista movement as I walk, listen and learn through my experiences in South Africa, after only three days I am beginning to hold a better understanding for the process and necessity of resistance. In only 3 days, I have visited Constitutional hill and the court of justice, the University of Witwatersrand, the Apartheid museum, Soweto, the house of Nelson Mandela and the museum/memorial of Hector Pieterson. Seeing the history of apartheid and the amount oppression that some many people have experienced and continue to experience in this nation is something that has both shocked me and at the same time strengthened my understanding of colonialism, oppression and the human spirit of resistance.

I am realizing and personally believing that in seeking for truth in the midst of a bloody history and in a highly xenophobic society holds a strong importance in the process of reconciliation. It seems like there is a key stage within reconciliation that is centered on an exchange of forgiveness for truth or in other words the exposition of truth as a process of forgiveness and reconciliation. At the Hector Pieterson museum we had the privilege of meeting Antoinette—the sister of Hector Pieterson that ran next to his side in the famous picture of his death. In the desire of making my trip everything that I can make it be and to squeeze every opportunity and experience that I have while in South Africa, I decided to ask some questions to Antoinette and was blessed with her perspectives on reconciliation, truth and forgiveness. I was struck and inspired by her words on forgiveness. She expressed to me that the act of forgiveness but not forgetting was crucial for her family and crucial for the South African nation. She would state that there is not point to hold a grudge and not forgive, what would that give us? To be an individual who greatly felt the violence and horrors of apartheid and yet proclaim forgiveness as an ideal in life and in the “post apartheid” South Africa was truly inspiring. In listening to Antoinette, it was interesting to hear her perspective on truth. She was telling me that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) asked her family if they wished to know who was specifically responsible for the death of Hector. The family did not wish to know as they felt that there was no point to having that knowledge, the death of Hector was a violent and horror filled death, yet—as Antoinette stated—it was still a regular death of an individual. From the perspective of Antoinette’s family, there was no importance of seeking for the truth yet the memorializing of Hector and the process of reconciliation was still carried out.

It is becoming clear to me that the act of seeking for truth or practice of forgiveness is greatly centered upon the culture and the individual. I am left with a question that I continue to ponder: what does forgiveness, truth and reconciliation do for the current state of xenophobia and oppression of black Africans within this nation?