TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 18

56 At the faith communities hearing in East London on 17 November 1997, Anglican Bishop Michael Nuttall made the following apology on behalf of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (CPSA):

[T]he CPSA acknowledges that there were occasions when, through the silence of its leadership or its parishes, or their actions in acquiescing with apartheid laws, where they believed it to be in the interest of the church, deep wrong was done to those who bore the brunt of the onslaught of apartheid. What aided and abetted this kind of moral lethargy and acquiescence was the fact that, in many respects, our church had developed, over many years, its own pattern of racial inequality and discrimination. It was all too easy to pass resolutions or make lofty pronouncements condemning apartheid. It was all too easy to point a morally superior finger at Afrikaner nationalist prejudice and pride. English pride and prejudice was no less real and it was never very far below the surface of our high sounding moral pronouncements. The Anglican Lord Milner must be as problematic to Afrikaner Christians as DF Malan, the dominee, is to us.

In a strange way, I think many white Anglicans in the CPSA owe an apology to the Afrikaner community for their attitude of moral superiority. I became aware of this need when, as Bishop of Pretoria from 1976 to 1981, I got to know such fine Afrikaner Christians as David Bosch and Piet Meiring. Perhaps, Chairperson, I could ask Professor Piet Meiring in his capacity as a member of the [Commission] kindly to receive this expression of apology from a Bishop of ‘die Engelse kerk’ [the ‘English’ (Anglican) Church]. (Applause.)

But our chief expression of apology must be to our own black membership, and I am using the word ‘black’ inclusively. Here we are speaking of the overwhelming majority of the CPSA, both in Southern Africa as a whole and in South Africa particularly. Interestingly, our black membership increased significantly in the early apartheid years, especially on the reef where the witness against the new ideology was strong. Ours is primarily a black church; it has been and still is in many ways, a suffering church. Suffering at the hands of the church itself.

Chairperson, our so-called white parishes, like white businesses (and I am thinking of last week’s [Commission] hearings), have unquestionably benefited from apartheid and its political predecessors. In their church facilities, including housing and transport for their priests, they have been bastions of relative privilege. So-called black parishes by contrast, like black businesses, have been decidedly disadvantaged in these respects. Within the black Anglican community, there has been a further disparity in that, very often, as in the secular apartheid scenario, the African church has been worse off than the coloured, and the coloured church worse off than the Indian.

57 At the health sector hearing in Cape Town, the following apologies were made:

Medical Association of South Africa (MASA): Our written submission details the many failures and compromises that occurred along the way, failures of will and courage, compromises founded on expediency, many of these occurring even in the years since 1989. It’s not possible in the time available today to explore in detail all the misdeeds of commission and especially of omission that have been detailed in our written submission. However, I can assure the Commission that we have made every possible effort to provide as complete and as honest a disclosure as it lies in our power to do.

I plead with you and with the nation, that this submission be accepted with respect for the truth which it embodies. It is vital for the Association, at this point in its development, [for] its renewal and its transformation, to achieve reconciliation, and this can only happen if there has been full disclosure and full acknowledgement of all the wrongs of the past. If there are gaps or omissions in this submission, they are unintentional. We would welcome any input in this regard from whatever quarter it may come.

The transformation of MASA of which I speak is an ongoing process. A significant event along the way was the unconditional apology for the past wrongs of the Association that was made in June 1995. We stand by every word that was spoken in that apology. However, there are those who understood this apology to be an attempt on the part of the Association to achieve what they termed blanket amnesty and to sweep everything else from our past under the carpet. This was far from the intention of that apology. The apology was a necessary step along the road we are travelling, but it was only a step. Our wholehearted participation in the work of this Commission is yet another step on this road, but again only a step.

In terms of the way forward, there is much that we have done to make sure that the wrongs perpetrated in the past by doctors can never occur again, but there is much that remains to be done. We intend to participate fully in the work of the proposed over-arching Health and Human Rights Organisation. We propose to enlarge and to strengthen the office and the activities of our ombudsman, our public protector. Our peer review system has already been sharpened and structured much more effectively than it ever was before. We are currently engaged in a programme designed to promote structured ethics education in all the medical schools in this country, and we are planning formal structured training for prisons’ health service personnel.

However, in all these efforts, we still find ourselves hampered by the huge baggage of past wrongs that the Association has had to drag along with itself and from which it has found it impossible to free itself. It will only be through the process of truthful disclosure and reconciliation that we will finally be freed from the burden of this baggage.

58 In a written submission to the Commission presented at the institutional hearing on the legal profession, the following apologies were made:

LWH Ackermann, Constitutional Court Judge: It is difficult, if not impossible, for me as a white South African to draw a clear or steady line between my personal and my professional failures in regard to addressing wrongs of racism generally and institutionalised professional racism in particular. I failed as an advocate, in terms of my ethical, moral and religious beliefs, by not speaking out sooner, and when I did, not sufficiently powerfully or persistently, against the Pretoria Bar’s colour bar and, in general, against the discriminatory treatment meted out to blacks by the justice system, and by not trying to motivate the organised profession to protest against all such discrimination, particularly as it affected black colleagues. I did not do enough to resist the pervasive institutional culture and to dismiss my fears that, if I did speak out, my career would be jeopardised at a Bar where, soon after joining, I was as branded as a liberal.

I similarly failed on the Bench, prior to my resignation, by not pursuing the avenues … soon enough, vigorously enough or at all. Of course, my failure to combat racism more vigorously extends beyond my profession and legal career...

I acknowledge and regret these failures. I am deeply saddened by the consequences of these failures on the lives of black people, and I wish to apologise for my role in denying them their full and equal humanity.

GL Grobler SC, Chairperson Pretoria Bar: We apologise to our colleagues, to the judiciary, the attorneys’ profession, the public at large and in particular the victims of unjust laws for these failures. As is the case with the apology which we tendered in regard to the racial discrimination which our Bar practised until 1980, we should have offered our expression of regret at a much earlier stage. We apologise for this remissness. We are grateful for the opportunity which our fellow bars and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have given us to set the record straight in public.