TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 2

Chapter 6

Subsection 1

Volume SIX Section TWO ChapterS I X

Reparations and Civil Society

1. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the Commission) seized the imagination of many South Africans and, from the start of its work, initiatives aimed at healing and reparation sprang up all over the country. They provide an example of the enormous value of the role of civil society in the work of bringing about the healing and reconciliation our society so urgently needs. They also demonstrate the fact that reparation is a multi-faceted process and can be approached from many sides by many people. In other words, it needs to be seen as a national project to which we are all committed as South Africans.

CREATIVE APPROACHES TO REPARATION AND HEALING

2. There are many examples of organisations, individuals, artists and events that have used creative approaches to begin to address the issues of healing and reparation. That they have seldom been given the same amount of publicity as the Commission itself does not detract from their importance. It would be true to say that some of the most profound experiences of reconciliation, acknowledgment and healing happened in intimate spaces away from the public gaze. This is as it should be, since it is in those intimate spaces that peoples’ most powerful emotions reside. Many of these initiatives have a great impact on peoples’ lives because details of the victim’s experience and interactions between participants can be freely expressed .

3. This chapter outlines some such forums or creative expressions by various civil society groups and individuals.

The story I’m about to tell

4.One such example is a theatrical play called The story I’m about to tell. This was (and still is) an initiative using acting, audience participation, real-life recollections of violations and an improvised script that was true to life events.

5. The actors are survivors of gross human rights violations, and indeed only act in the sense that they are on a stage engaged in a performance of their experiences. Their role changes to that of facilitators when, importantly, the play does not end, but moves on to include the audience in an interactive debate and discussion.

6. An individual who gave testimony at Commission hearings, Mr Duma Khumalo (a former death row prisoner), says that audiences seem to open up more and travel much further into the past than occurred at the formal Commission hearings. Members of audiences have expressed their difficulties about opening up and speaking of the past, which they had often kept secretly to themselves.

7. One such powerful encounter occurred whilst performing the play in Germany. The widow of a man killed by the South African Defence Force (SADF) approached the actors, saying that she had always felt that she would die in unresolved pain. However, through experiencing the stories retold in the play, she found herself able to forgive and let go.

8. The play was staged at the Grahamstown Arts Festival, one of South Africa’s major arts festivals. After the play, an elderly white South African man approach e d one of the players, Ma Mlangeni, embraced her, sobbing, and then left without saying a word. For the actors, no words were necessary: such was the power of this intimate encounter.

9. In another instance, an audience member asked Duma Khumalo: ‘How did you feel when you were about to die?’ Mr Khumalo recalls being shocked that no one had previously felt able to ask him this. He attributes this to the unique power of the play. He summed up his experiences of performing in the play as ‘a piece of delicious cake’.

10. Far from being simply a forum for profound moments of healing, the play has also proved a catalyst for expressions and questions that were often not articulated in the context of the Commission, especially those that were conflictual or anti - reconciliatory. While performing in South Africa, a youth expressed his sense of injustice at having to witness lies by perpetrators, asking, ‘How do they expect us to feel?’ In some instances, when the play was touring London and Great Britain, there were exchanges and debates between members of the audience about who had benefited from apartheid.

11. The story I’m about to tell is an ongoing initiative and many requests have been made for it to be staged in township contexts. Importantly, the play has received sponsorship from the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.