hrvtrans SUBMISSION BY DR HANNES KOORENHOF, DR BETHEL MULLER & FREDERICK MARAIS 1996-10-15 WINELANDS 2 https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=56148&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/hrvtrans/wineland/ngk.htm CHAIRPERSON Good afternoon, good afternoon, would you please stand for the witnesses to come into the hall. I was not here this morning and therefore on behalf of the Commission I wish to bid you all a hearty welcome here this afternoon. I welcome you - all of you very, very warmly to this session, this hearing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We welcome all of you to this hearing of the Truth Commission, [indistinct] session this one because we are going to have for the very first time in the life of the Commission a - a submission by a - a denomination by a church even though it is a section of the church it is a particularly significant moment because that church is the white Dutch Reformed Church. I have already said that they have played a large roll in the history of our country and I believe that they will also make big contribution towards Reconciliation and the healing of our whole country. MS GOBODO Would - could the next witnesses come on stage please. Dr Hannes Koorenhof, Dr Bethel Muller and Fred Marais, thank you very much. DR ORR Can I ask that you all stand and take the oath then please. HANNES KOORENHOF Duly sworn states BETHEL MULLER Duly sworn states FREDERICK MARAIS Duly sworn states DR ORR Thank you very much, Pumla will now facilitate your evidence. MS GOBODO Thank you Wendy, welcome again. I believe Dr Koorenhof is going to read your statement. I just want to formally state that you are making a confession on behalf of the Stellenbosch Dutch Reformed Church Circuit and I will hand over to you to give your statement - make your confession. DR KOORENHOF Thank you very much, it is my pleasure now to read our statement. Only the Synod has this right to do this but what we are doing here this afternoon is the deepest conviction of the Prespatory of Stellenbosch. As a representative of the Dutch Reformed Church of Stellenbosch, we present this submission Mr Chairman because in our opinion the Truth and Reconciliation Commission can for full an important part in creating in South Africa a climate of healing and reconciliation. Since we as a Prespatory are eager to help in the furtherance of this process of healing - of reconciliation and of the establishment of justice we will in what follows below, try to share with the Commission briefly something of your story at Stellenbosch. As we see this in our perspective. For these reasons we further believe that in every situation the Church of Christ should be a witness of truth, justice, reconciliation and of love. In looking back we realize however that there have been times in the history of Stellenbosch when we as a Prespatory and also as individual organizations are the failed wholesale or made only the most timid of efforts to for fill this pathetic responsibility. We think especially of the past 40 years during which the official policy of apartheid radically impaired the human dignity of people all around us and resulted in grouse violations of human rights. Within the borders of our Presbytery there were those who actively developed and campaigned the ideological framework from which these violations and actions were held to derive their justification. At times indeed the stand taken within this Presbytery itself were once that functioned within this ideological framework. As a result of the growing economical isolation - as a result of a lack of worthwhile unity in the Dutch Reformed Church family, we came to be deaf to the process and the cries of many of our brothers and sisters in faith. For many church members and church ministers alike, this deafness facilitated the uncritical assumption that because a large proportion of political leaders were church members themselves. Political leaders could be fully trusted to do what was right. This initiative was not successful in the long run. This is a failure that we were at leased partly to blame for. Despite some very real attempts we must confess that we backed away at crucial moments from letting a clear testimony against injustice be heard in the land. Testimony for example against detention without trial. Eventually we did begin to see the error of our ways. And this is why the Lord brought us to these insights. That is why, in a formal resolution adopted in 1985, the Presbytery confessed the guilt which brought upon ourselves by our own acts and omissions during the apartheid era. Now that the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is confronting us once again with the praying and grieve endured by fellow citizens and fellow believers under the previous political dispensation. We feel the need to confess our guilt once again before God and before people. We feel the need to make this confession specifically at this session of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission because it is here that people from our own vicinity are sharing the pain and grieve that they have to live through. We confess that we kept silent at times when we should have spoke out clearly in testimony. We confess that although we did at times try to protest against the unjust treatment of people we often did so only with great timidity and circumspection. We did at times comment critically but we often in doing so shrank from speaking out against the system itself. What is more, we often gave way to the opposition we encountered. At the very times when we should have continued to speak out clearly for the truth and against injustice we grew tired and gave up protesting. Today we confess these things unknown before the many people of Stellenbosch and vicinity who suffered injustice before - because of that. We confess these things before the youth and the children of our own church and our own congregations who feel that through our [indistinct] we have failed them. Our story Mr Chairman is also however a story of hope. The fact that the Lord therefore we also want to confess. The fact is that the Lord has not abandoned us in spite of everything and this gives us hope for the future. It is challenging us more over to make a common cause with other Churches and interest groups in our community in a drive for soscio-economic and society upliftment. At the time when because of conditions in the country many of our church members are turning negative, despondent and even cynical. We as a Presbytery and as a Church are more overcalled upon to be and to remain witnesses of hope. We therefore join the profit Micha when we testify as follows: The God whom we serve has the power to MS GOBODO DR KOORENHOF In Appendix 1 is an attempt to indicate how so far as 1956, 1955 various standpoints were taken and what decisions were made. Like how the church positioned itself within this theological framework. And Appendix 2 we refer to the Synod meeting of 1972 were certain decisions where made about the unrest situation, but where it was indicated that these decisions were made within the context of the situation at that time. But no where the system as such was criticized. In this regard we could not make a real contribution. MS GOBODO Thank you very much [indistinct] and the - the attached to your submission. Just one last question for Bethel and Frederick just to tell us how you have experienced the process of writing up this document. DR MULLER My children could go to schools in a privileged education system. I was not aware of that - my heart was closed, not only my eyes also my heart was closed because of the system. It was all the information we received and rather to take easy way out and that is to keep quiet. This was an opportunity - this is the moment of truth where I was freed. I was freed by participating in making this statement. I was - became part of a process where we could tell our story. And then there will be freedom, peace and hope for our society. It was a privilege but it was not easy at all because you have to look deep into your own heart and you see the evil in your heart. MR MARAIS [indistinct] member of our church and as a young Christian in South Africa we ask ourselves the question how is it possible that it could have happened in our country these terrible things which did happen. How could it happen if there are many Christians in this country. And we did this so that the truth could be revealed so that it could never happen again. I have 2 small little daughters at home and I hope that they can grow up in a country and in a community were they will respect the human dignity of all the people of this land. It was not easy to prepare this statement. To be able to have a future I realized that by participating in this process I can only have a future if this is based on revealing the truth from the history. Then I can only find my routs and then I can look into the future with hope. So this was a very difficult rout to take but the word of God tells us that truth frees us and I have experienced this the previous few weeks. I want to be freed so that I as a young person can live enthusiastically in this country where God had put me and that for the children which God has given me that I can create a future for them. We cannot deny this history, this history will keep us in prison if the truth is not revealed. That was - it was an indescribable privilege to be part of this process and for us as young people who are interested in our future, it is very important to determine exactly what had happened in the past. To see exactly what went wrong so that if will happen again. MS GOBODO [indistinct] shall be now - pass you onto - over to the Chairperson, thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON PROF MEIRING Thank you very much for your document and thank you very much for your submission. For me it is an absolutely serious matter, not just the words which you have said to the Commission that they should be important and reflect the things that should be decided upon but that it should also influence a lot of other churches and communities and religious groups. And give them the necessary courage to do the same and I hope that what you have started here today will be but the first of a series of such submissions in our quest to find the truth and in that quest that we will hear the evidence of the other truth - of the other religious groups. And on the other side that it will lead to reconciliation. That we should take reconciliation very seriously as Christians, thank you very much. Just two short questions, perhaps in the address of Dr Bethel Muller. In the center of page 3 in your evidence you said that eventually there was new insight in the Dutch Reformed Church. You saw the era of your ways, I would like to know from you as a professor from you and your fellow lecturers. Stellenbosch is very ridged institution. DR MULLER Honorable Chairperson, Prof Meiring what happened to change our minds is that - look it is so that the University and specifically the Theological Faculty in name and in sermon, in practice was steadfast in the truth and that Theology was there to serve the truth because it is all about God and that God stands for the truth. You know a lot a people believed in the system, a lot of people believed in apartheid and wrote books entitled "My Credo" the meaning this is what I believe in. And what happened was not always with vicious intent but it was all caught up, it was blindly caught up, it - it was being hard, stone hearted. But you know when one is start gradually scratching away at a dam that is filling up, it starts with a little [indistinct] of water and then eventually that little crevice gets deeper and deeper until the walls of the dam break. And I think this is what happened through the mercy of God. I do not want to mention any names but there were from the earliest of times people in the - in the - at the University as well as in the Presbytery and in the - in the Theological School who scratched at the - at the wall of this dam. very easily but when it starts turning it turns And that day we experienced a turning point. MR MARAIS Mr Chairman, this submission made us realize right at the beginning that it cannot be the - the end. It was but the beginning, it is the first little step that we are taking out to the isolation of the division between the churches. From a practical point of view I see that we have to go back to our congregations with this document and discuss it. The way in which church meetings take decisions shows that not necessarily all members of the congregation know what is going to happen but we will deal with that at ministerial levels and I see much more that can happen. And while the older people were talking I realized that not just guilt but hurt as well was in their consciences. I thinks that there was pain in the people who had in the oppresses as in the oppressed and I think that the church is the ideal vehicle to bring communities together at a ministerial level. Where the media is not present, where people can speak from their hearts and rid themselves of - of the burdens and free themselves. I became aware of the fact that when you have hurt somebody else you in a way remain a prisoner of that persons pain and it is only when you - as we believe - through the wonderful grace of God that we can have the courage to led and to forgive. And that is the only way that healing can take place and I think that it is a wonderfully freeing process which can take place and I think that our church and our churches that is what - our calling from God. CHAIRPERSON Dr Koorenhof is there anything you would like to add? Dr KOORENHOF: No. REV XUNDU Most specially for me it is a guess option when he met the Lord, he said the privilege that is - the privileges that I had I want to take over to share as an [indistinct] . So because one of the outward and visible signs that had gone to make it credible for us is when those who are privilege begin to take that privilege of accumulated resources to be able to build together with those who have not had those privileges. It is my hope that he will find the niche for that in your program of transformation, thank you. CHAIRPERSON We hope that other churches - now I have to say about the Anglican Church they have enrolled to confess to because you have to ask them why was the first black bishop only in 1960. What were you doing all of these times, and our church - I mean - our church until very recently did not appoint people regardless of race. And our church gave different titles to people according to race but I have to say and Ntebisi will remember that - our church tried but it is not done it in your way and I hope - I mean - that they will come. In 1992 we had one of the extraordinary moments in the life of our church when first of all white members of our - of the cygnet said their were confessing and asking for forgiveness for their part in apartheid and then virtually everybody got up because everybody knew that - to some extent they - they had something to confess as well. Whether they were black or white, but we have not yet had anything like what you have done and I - I said long ago - now you might think this is a backhanded complement that the Afrikaner is not subtle - now, you might - but in - the fact of the matter is true.