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?
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