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...