Print
this page
Email
this page Newsletters - Acts of Terror and the Family
South Africa - Confronting the past and creating the future in South Africa and beyond.
In 1992, I returned to South Africa after an absence of 16 years spent in Lesotho and Zimbabwe. The first thing which struck me on my return was that we were a damaged nation – damaged in our humanity by what we had done, by what had been done to us, and by what we had failed to do. And all of us with a story to tell – about our experience of the apartheid years.
In 1993 I became chaplain to the Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture in Cape Town. Already, even before democracy came to South Africa, the debate had begun about how the nation would deal with its past. A few dreamed of “Nuremberg”, although a negotiated settlement with all its compromises meant that this option was never really a possibility.
Questions were raised in the media about violations of human rights in the military camps of the African National Congress outside South Africa. The liberation movement responded by acknowledging and accepting responsibility. It asserted that in a new democratic state it would be important to lay bare as complete a picture as possible of the full horror of what had happened under apartheid – not just the transgressions of those who fought for freedom.
The whole negotiating process became log jammed over the question of amnesty. The apartheid generals demanded blanket general amnesty in private – tacitly acknowledging that they had committed indefensible atrocities to preserve white rule. Amnesty was agreed to on an individual basis and in public.
As South Africans, we looked to Latin America to find a mechanism that would take us from an oppressive dictatorial past to a future based on respect for human rights. A number of Latin American countries had set up truth commissions for that purpose. We too opted for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a mechanism to acknowledge and to overcome the past.
Even before the Commission began its work, I asked myself – how many stories will be heard by the Commission and what will happen to the other stories? 23,000 people came forward to speak about torture, murder, abductions, sexual violence and other forms of severe maltreatment. 7,700 sought amnesty for what they had done for political reasons but only about 10% were successful. For nearly five years, the nation was transfixed as we gazed into the mirror and saw what we had done to each other.
Much was revealed, but even today much remains hidden. Significant areas of South African life have not yet had to account fully for what they did – this includes international corporations, the military and the judiciary which presided over countless unjust laws – without talking about those who passed the laws.
3,500,000 people were forcibly removed from their homes but their stories were not heard by the Commission. No one knows the full scale of damage done to African family life after more than a century of migrant labour.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of all was the failure of the State to respond quickly, generously and systematically to the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, especially with regard to reparations. Nevertheless it is true to say that South Africa captured the imagination of the world by facing its past and putting it on the table to a greater degree than any country had hitherto.
In the face of the question, what about the stories of those which did not come before the Commission, a few of us decided to set up a parallel process. We created for the purpose an experiential workshop which we called “The Healing of the Memories”.
During a three-day period, groups of 25 people at a time have an opportunity to explore how the past of the country has affected them psychologically, emotionally and spiritually – to cough out the “poison”. A safe and sacred space is created to enable participants to begin to acknowledge and lay to rest what in the past is destructive and to take from the past that which is lifegiving. We guarantee those who come to our workshops one step on the road to healing. But it can be the step which takes people away from victimhood, from the cycle that turns victims into victimisers and towards becoming victors.
Top
