TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Part minority_position

Subsection 4

■ RECONCILIATION

29 Much has been made of the need to reconcile victims and perpetrators of gross human rights violations. However important this may be to individuals, the work and experience of the Commission has revealed how remote this ideal is, certainly as far as any significant numbers are concerned. Unfortunately, expectations of particular behaviour, determined by a religious frame, were once again imposed on communities seen as actors in the conflict.

30 The religious conversion model of confession, repentance and forgiveness is by the very dogma of religion at the level of the very personal, of the individual as against his or her God or offended neighbour. There is no short cut. Yet with regard to the crime of apartheid (and its evils), there was much rhetoric about how whites or Afrikaners should acknowledge the violations, accept the responsibility, apologise to blacks and experience the liberation of their forgiveness. The religious paradigm is tendered as a solution for our ills. There is a call for representative confession, repentance and forgiveness. Experience shows that, despite “handsome apologies” by leaders in virtually every sphere of Afrikaner society, there are continued calls for an Afrikaner leader to stand up and apologise in order to experience the level and extent of black readiness to forgive.

31 National unity accepts different communities, accepts different cultures, accepts different value systems, accepts different religions, and even accepts different histories, provided there is some shared history. The work and activities of the Commission will certainly contribute to the further development of a shared history. However, such a history cannot be force-fed.

32 Reconciliation is built on a mutual understanding and acceptance of these differences and a capacity of people to manage conflict and live with others.

33 National unity and reconciliation calls for a commitment to share a future and for each, in his or her own way, to build towards that future. It calls for a commitment to respect law and the procedures and processes laid down by the Constitution. All of this already exists. It may be a fledgling, but it exists. It can only be enhanced.

34 If we can arrive at a position where we simply acknowledge the conflicts of the past (as required by the Act), recognising that there were perpetrators and victims of gross human rights violations in these conflicts, we will have advanced some way towards national unity. If we can reframe our history to include both perpetrators and victims as victims of the ultimate perpetrator – namely, the conflict of the past, we will have fully achieved unity and reconciliation and an awareness of the real threat to our future – which is a dogmatic or ideological division that polarises the nation instead of promoting genuine political activity. Somewhere down the line, we must succeed in integrating, through political engagement, all our histories, in order to discontinue the battles of the past. As with the negotiations that preceded the elections and the drafting of the Constitution, our understanding of history must accommodate all interpretations of the past. If we fail in this regard, we will fail to be a nation.