reparations REPARATION & REHABILITATION COMMITTEE TRANSCRIPTS 1998-02-18 Johannesburg 1 https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=56427&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/reparations/joburg1.htm CHAIRPERSON MS MKHIZE DR DANIEL Just to explain before I open the floor to all of you so that you are with me on this, the way I chose the sequence to do it, right, from the drawing to the words, to then place it in the memory, right, and then place it in inter personal relationship between you and others, right, and then inside between you and yourself, right, and then to analyse the different dimensions, how the different dimensions, the identity dimensions effect our relationship to the trauma, right. And only the last was your professional self. Did you follow that? SPEAKER 1 DR DANIEL DOUGLAS DR DANIEL Thanks. Anybody, go ahead, speak to the mike. The mikes are all over the place so just grab them. MS MANGELE MKWASA I think one of the reasons is that having re-experienced and re-lived the trauma just a few minutes ago, you get into a state where you feel you want to protect yourself from further vulnerability, you know, it's still too painful to start sharing it and you don't want to be overcome by the feelings, especially in a group of this size. So in a way it's protective, that's the way. JOHANNA Most of my trauma is sort of secondary trauma but that doesn't make it any less traumatic, I think. But I think what also happens if you see, I'm a psychologist so I see a lot of trauma. What happens is that somehow, I find it goes to a very deep place and to drag is out from there and the conspiracy of silence is not only between the client and the helper but also between the helper and their environment. So I've become used to not talking about it, that it's actually gone into a very deep place and I don't know if I can or want to get it out. GEOFF I think, aside from the purely psychological issues that are going on here, this particular context, political context, we come from a history of silence essentially. We come from a history of several decades, probably more than that where people have not been able to express themselves publicly, where people have not felt safe. So I think there's a sort of a cloud hanging over this whole gathering which derives from the sort of political background from which we all come and which I think has had an incredible influence on South Africans in general, of all persuasions, of all colours, of all ethnic groups, so the psychological aspects are not operating by themselves here. There is this tremendous cloud of denial. I mean, whites, for decades in order to get up in the morning and look themselves in the mirror had to deny a lot of the reality around them just to kind of get through the day without acknowledging what was going on around them or the basis of the lives and the same applies on the black side and I think that's a big factor that operates here as well. And I don't know how one takes that into account but I have that feeling that that's a strong element here. DR DANIEL That's just remember that psychology is a psychological aspect is never in isolation, it's always related to the rest of the dimensions of the person. That's why we went through all of those dimensions, right. Absolutely. MS MKHIZE Well, personally I'm quiet because somehow the exercise scared me. I don't know why. I was prepared. I saw yesterday the - everything, I knew in my mind that this is how you're going to start but I just got scared. When you said we should write, I noted I just found myself saying nothing. There were things which came, experiences which came to my mind but I just said nothing and I sort of went on to say, it's unnecessary for people to suffer but somehow my mind just refused to articulate a specific traumatic experience but they were there in my mind, so my silence is out of fear, which I can't explain. HEATHER I think one of the aspects to my conspiracy of silence with the exercise in the beginning actually going through it was that, just to go back to areas of pain in my life and what if I burst out into uncontrollable sobs while we were doing it and how would I contain myself and would it be stupid because everyone else looked so together while doing it. So I think that was something that added to the conspiracy of silence. PATRICK I think that to me that my silence comes from a deep feeling of denial that though these things happened, I don't really want to talk about them. I don't want to face my past. I want to shut out a lot of things, you know. From myself and of course for the group too, I mean I don't want the group, you know, to even to know about those areas that I'm not quite comfortable about. DR DANIEL Why? PATRICK I don't know, it's that denial that I'm talking about. DR DANIEL Could you ask yourselves what your fantasy about ... we've heard some it, you know the fear that if I start crying, it will be forever, if I start screaming, you know, this room will be shattered or the more, as I call it the polite stuff, you know, being afraid and people will think I'm stupid or this or that. Let's try to put that away at least because that's the silly stuff, right. You know, it's like, people will think I'm stupid, doesn't quite belong in this discussion because there's nothing that can be stupid here. Could you have other fantasies about what will happen if you shared. PATRICK I don't really know how others will receive my story. DR DANIEL How do .... PATRICK Well they may say, well this is stupid. DR DANIEL Is this a South African thing, to call everything stupid? PATRICK Ya, and you see the other thing is this that we really come- it is true what somebody said, you know, what Geoff said, we really come from a tradition, I mean when I grew up, I mean I would be doing something perhaps naughty or something like that and a lot of us come from a tradition where you know, if you were given a slap by your mother or something like that, the next thing is "shut up", you have your tears running down, then you have to shut up, right. And then secondly, it's also from, I mean my Dad used to say, okay, you are a man, it's going to be okay, you know, sort of thing, you know. We don't talk about these things, okay. DR DANIEL Thank you. You see, already we have a social dimension. This stupid business. We have the transference dimension. My mother said that and therefore, she's still here in the room doing that. All your mothers are here and your fathers. And all the political figures and the oppression and apartheid is in the room. And rightly so. See silence is a vehicle of oppression, isn't it? and it's in the room with us. The oppression is still in the room with us. We are still keeping it going. We are keeping the oppression here in this room with us. So even though apartheid or whatever other trauma you chose is over, we are keeping it up. Very important, that's how we hang on. So while we say we are afraid of something, that something is .. we keep with us. And that's why, for example when we talk and we talk about treatment throughout, right, the three days. But that's how we perpetuate the trauma, okay. So please keep that in mind. That actually everything you've said, perpetuates the trauma. Silence is an integral part of the trauma. Particularly, the trauma that many of you have experienced, okay. So let's just be aware of that and that we are still getting into that really. Please ... MS KOSI My name is Kosi. Suffering in silence, it's terrible. When I wanted to tell about the torture I received. It was that being the victim, those who tortured me would laugh at me and feel so big that they managed to destroy me. Now half the time I can't just express myself because I felt so humiliated, especially when at one stage I had a stroke and a heart attack and I was - even when I was released I depended on my people and there are quite a lot of things which comes to my mind whenever and I can't understand why a human being can go that far, especially that I was detained with a baby of two years and I was tortured in front of her. DR DANIEL Have you talked to people about it? You're saying the silence is torture itself, right? That the suffering in silence is terrible. Have you shared? What is your experience of that? MS KOSI I do share. I have been sharing it for the last fifteen years. When I became better. I had to learn to walk and talk. I had to share it with my husband who also underwent the same thing but up to, to date, my daughter, she suffers from that trauma because I only met her when she was three years old. Every time, every year, between October and November even at school, she suffers a lot, it's psychological because she can't explain why. DR DANIEL What happened between October and November? MS KOSI It is when I was detained with her and they took her away from me. After four days. DR DANIEL Go ahead. MS KOSI Excuse me. It is another thing again is that my husband was also detained. The whole family was sort of destroyed. Every now and then, it becomes too much and I feel .... DR DANIEL How? MS KOSI Especially when - seeing that I'm back home now after being in exile all this time. I look at everybody, especially white people, although I haven't been able to reconcile myself to the whole thing, you know, whenever, just as one would, and I feel so terrible about it. DR DANIEL Reconcile yourself to what, exactly? MS KOSI That everything is over. That apartheid is dead or something like that. DR DANIEL Can you say more about that? KOSI What worries me is that why so many atrocities were committed and that today everything is over and most people behave as if nothing has happened. DR DANIEL I'm wondering what the rest of you feel about what we just heard. ...(Inaudible) UNKNOWN I just had an automatic response to what I shared. There was just an automatic response which maybe it's important to share. The sharing we've just had for some of us who hear people time and again I find myself just getting over involved in what has been shared. DR DANIEL What is over involved? UNKNOWN Somehow in my mind, getting into the ...(inaudible), struggling with the issues that he is raising. DR DANIEL And how do you feel? UNKNOWN Feeling, getting angry and just - I was sharing about a dream I had recently that I found myself being the only one who had been reconciled and the whole country has reconciled ...(inaudible). DR DANIEL It looks like a lot of people find that funny. How many of you think that the whole country is reconciled? Look around will you please. Please turn and look around. If anybody raised their hand. It's very important, isn't it? That each one of you maybe walking around thinking that everybody else has reconciled but you. And that's part of what the conspiracy of silence does. It keeps you lonely. It keeps you lonely and isolated. I don't think you're the only one who felt your anger. Go ahead please. MR KHUMALO When you say, it keeps you lonely. Maybe I don't understand you or our interpretation is not the same. Why I'm saying this is because, a person who have been traumatised, he's no more at easy with the world and then he even fail to trust another human being and then .... DR DANIEL Which is also part of the loneliness and perpetuates the conspiracy of silence. You're totally right. MR KHUMALO Okay. And then the lady was talking about something which happened something like fifteen years back. But talking about it, it's so fresh, it's like something which happened yesterday. DR DANIEL That's correct. When we don't integrate the trauma it keeps with us as if it happened yesterday or today. It's absolutely right. Those areas of ourselves that we have not healed. That we have not integrated, feel to us as if they're still with us, totally fresh, it is exactly what you said. MR KHUMALO Yes. We do not. Let me say personally. I do want to do away with them but it's so difficult. And then I have tried the best and the means, I have tried several times to deal with the trauma. DR DANIEL How? MR KHUMALO I'm still under a clinical psychology. DR DANIEL Wonderful. MR KHUMALO It's more than six years now. And I have tried other means too. DR DANIEL Like? MR KHUMALO A group counselling. Where we talk about our past. But what happens is this, you might feel at ease after talking but when you leave the place. It comes back again. Starts afresh. And then I have read some of the books, like Mans Search for Meaning and the other one by Primo Levy. At the end Primo Levy, end of committing society. And I said to myself, even a person of his kind, he committed society, what about me. Those are the questions which still bothers me. Thank you. DR DANIEL A line of the questions that you are bringing up, we will deal with throughout the three days, okay. So don't feel that if we don't give answers immediately, we won't confront them, we absolutely will. And if we don't, you force me to, okay? I just want to say, I'm very moved that you have read Mans Search for Meaning and ...(inaudible) Levy's book. Makes me feel closer to you. I knew both of them. Both Victor Frankel and Primo Levy. Victor Frankel just died two weeks ago. At a very ripe old age. Go ahead. MR SONTORI I'm from a farm. One other thing is lack of confidence and self esteem. Ya, the reason why I'm saying that, this, it is because, particularly on the black side, the past regime made us to believe, actually we were labelled, you'll hear words like stupid kaffir. And then the person who is saying that is the person who is having an authority. Now having said that, I mean, I understand myself as a black person that I have nothing maybe to say or anything that I'm doing it could not be taken into consideration because of, you know, such word and the way we were made to believe. The way we were labelled. Then that actually evolved something which we called inferiority complex. Then in most cases it kept me for quite a long time to be silenced. Thank you very much. DR DANIEL MS NONGYEBO MR DAWETI DR DANIEL MS KOSI Kosi. DR DANIEL MR DAWETI Inaudible DR DANIEL MEETING ADJOURNS ON RESUMPTION DR DANIEL GEOFF I just wanted to say something which sprang from what two people have said, that was Kosi, earlier on and then somebody back here. It seems that if one talks .... DR DANIEL MR DAWETI Vusele. GEOFF DR DANIEL AUDIENCE More than fifty years. DR DANIEL KOSI DR DANIEL KOSI DR DANIEL SPEAKER DR DANIEL EDDIE In 1985, on a project that was called "Confronting the Past in Justice", ten South Africans, across the spectrum of South African society, predominantly .......... DR DANIEL SPEAKER 3 I just want to know if there is any Jew member is at the house? If there are, I want to know whether there are Jews who benefited out of what happened during the holocaust and concentration camp. DR DANIEL Benefited how? SPEAKER 3: DR DANIEL You talking within the black community? SPEAKER 3 DR DANIEL SPEAKER 3 SPEAKER 4 SPEAKER 2 DR DANIEL KOSI DR DANIEL Thanks. MS PATEWE DR DANIEL MR KHOLEMANI DR DANIEL Rejected by society, do you mean by apartheid or by the conspiracy of silence afterwards? MR KHOLEMANI Maybe both. DR DANIEL Both. MR KHOLEMANI DR DANIEL May I - go ahead, please. ANGIE DUMA DR DANIEL DUMA You see, I have read most of the books of the people who were in the concentration camp. Okay. Wherever I am, I always carry them, yes. And then there are things which we in a ..... even those people, position to tell other people what happened but they are things as we have just said are our secret. And then the secret which might destroy your life and the secret which you cannot be in a position to tell or to relate to anyone. DR DANIEL There are no such things. DUMA This is South Africa. DR DANIEL DUMA Thank you. Now, my last question is this, are we supposed to tell our kids what happened or what was happening? DR DANIEL Supposed to - I love it. Do you want to tell your kids? DUMA DR DANIEL You are afraid to? DUMA True. What is happening to them now. They might develop hatreds. So how to treat that kind of situation. DR DANIEL EDDIE I think that one thing that we have in common now is ..... DR DANIEL Who is we? EDDIE DR DANIEL What do you feel? EDDIE I feel that we need to as a society, look for mechanisms that we can use. What has happened .... DR DANIEL EDDIE DR DANIEL Yeah, what do you feel? You heard him, what do you feel? What did you feel when he was talking? EDDIE I feel that something needs to be done. DR DANIEL EDDIE I have mixed feelings. DR DANIEL Tell us. EDDIE DR DANIEL Not anymore. EDDIE And that is related .... DR DANIEL EDDIE Yes. DR DANIEL Yeah, I feel very privileged. I hope all of you feel some of that. And we are not anymore strangers, you do know that. Go ahead. EDDIE But the word was used earlier on, the lack of self affirming experiences. And I think that what is happening here is that experiences are being affirmed ...... DR DANIEL And the experiences are being affirmed because you are sharing them. There would be no other way to affirm, would there? You shared them and people respond and they are affirmed. See, the conspiracy of silence deprives you, society, family of that. You said it. How would you like to affirm ...(inaudible) EDDIE DR DANIEL ANGIE DR DANIEL Could you attend to your ...... ANGIE What do you want me to attend to? DR DANIEL ANGIE To my tears? DR DANIEL Yeah. To your hurt. ANGIE DR DANIEL I mean, why do you think I asked you to do the exercise with us, right, the two "technical assistants" people. Because you are sitting here listening to the same stories and you must have heard these stories over and over again too. Are you taking care of yourself and your pain? ANGIE DR DANIEL Yes you are, here. ANGIE DR DANIEL Yeah, you and the rest of the men. ANGIE DR DANIEL ANGIE DR DANIEL ANGIE I know. I feel good afterwards. DR DANIEL ANGIE DR DANIEL There you go. ANGIE DR DANIEL I know the problem. ANGIE DR DANIEL ANGIE DR DANIEL ANGIE DR DANIEL ANGIE They drank. DR DANIEL ANGIE DR DANIEL SPEAKER 5 DR DANIEL SPEAKER 5 DR DANIEL SPEAKER 5 DR DANIEL SPEAKER 6 If I might be of help to you Tom, I mean .... DR DANIEL Tom knows what to say. SPEAKER 6 DR DANIEL DIANA DR DANIEL SPEAKER 7 KOSI DR DANIEL KOSI Anyway what I did yesterday, after I was pointing fingers and he was laughing. I told him, I promised him, very soon I will also buy a car and I will do the same to him. DR DANIEL MR DAWETI DR DANIEL Did you come up with one? MR DAWETI No, just general. DR DANIEL But actually any mechanism that may come up of this discussion any solution you see and we have come up with many of them at this point. Do you realise how many solutions we came up with? Without calling them that even? So listen to those. Any time you have a question that specifically comes from the flow of the discussion, bring it up because maybe we can then work on it. Go ahead. MR DAWETI SPEAKER 7 SPEAKER DR DANIEL EDDIE DR DANIEL Let me use the current situation to heal old wounds that I never attended to, okay. (e) (c) and (d), sure, they are similar actually. (c) was, seek consultation or further therapy for previously unexplored areas that are triggered by the stories, the patients stories or your clients or ..... And the other one is a more positive way of putting it really. Acknowledge that any one of the emotional reactions you have, right, like grief, mourning, rage, guilt, may interact with old unworked through experiences. You are thus able to use your professional work purposefully for your own growth. EDDIE On 3(d) you said, "the emotional reactions may interact with old unworked through experiences." To what extent is it true that it would also work, it will also interact with experiences that we have even worked through already and one draws positively from that. DR DANIEL MS MKHIZE DR DANIEL Did they want to come tomorrow or Friday? MS MKHIZE No, apparently tomorrow. So I just wanted to clear that with you, if you see people coming in and filming some sessions..... MEETING ADJOURNS