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What role can truth commissions and amnesty play in rebuilding a society decimated by decades of oppression and violence? Why must all citizens be included in a shared vision of the future?
After a society experiences a long period of mass violence no one is unaffected. Members of both the group that was oppressed and the group that oppressed carry the burden of the past. For a society to heal and for its citizens to peacefully co-exist, both groups must be attended to, and vengeance is not the solution for attaining a true and lasting reconciliation. |
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Leon Wessels is a South African and an Afrikaner. During apartheid, he was a member of the Parliament. In the reflection below, Wessels considers the implications of transition for South Africa, his struggles to critique and challenge apartheid from within, and his feelings about being an Afrikaner given South Africa’s brutal history of oppression.
One question haunted me: when a new dispensation came about: how would South Africans deal with the past? Would they try to speak about and deal with it—or would they take the easy option and simply ignore it? You cannot ignore the past, but you also cannot deal with it in a spirit of emotional bullying and vengeance.
When the epilogue to the Interim Constitution was finally accepted at a very late stage in
the negotiation process which gave South Africa its new democratic dispensation, many of
us gave a sigh of relief. Referring to a past that “generated gross violations of human rights…
and a legacy of hatred, fear, guilt an revenge,” it continued:
These can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding
but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need
for ubuntu but not for victimization.
In order to advance such reconciliation and reconstruction, amnesty shall be granted
in respect of acts, omissions and offences associated with political objectives
and committed in the course of the conflicts in the past…
The relief we felt was for the fact that we could have the full truth out in the open without
vengeance. A country has to know its history intimately. We had hurt one another, and the time
had come for healing. Those ringing words that provided for a process of uncovering the whole
truth and the granting of amnesty marked the beginning of the long road to reconciliation.
... I had grown up with military parades with military bands, the national flag and other symbols.
At each and every one of those events I experienced strong, positive emotions.
However, I had parted with the national flag and anthem for good. The day I took that conscious
decision had been heartrending and traumatic. Although there remained a place in history
for the anthem, The Voice of South Africa, and for the flag, we had to begin right then to
campaign in a sympathetic and sensitive way for the development of symbols that would
unite us all. I pleaded that we dared not isolate ourselves from Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika,
traditionally regarded as the black national anthem, which even our own supporters
experienced as an emotional prayer. I, therefore, did not sing the old anthem again.
At midnight on 26 April 1994 I stood with my son and friends in front of the Johannesburg
Civic Theatre among thousands of other South Africans. We were waiting for the old symbol
to be struck and for the new national flag to be raised. It would announce the birth of the new, democratic South Africa while both The Voice of South Africa and Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika were to be sung as the national anthem.
The liberating effects of the elections, the general acceptance of the new national flag and anthem and the singing of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika once more allowed me and my other South Africans the freedom to sing The Voice of South Africa with emotion and pride.
I am an Afrikaner. I am a liberated Afrikaner. I am also a proud Afrikaner. Liberated Afrikaners
took the reform bit firmly between their teeth when it was necessary. Both our hearts and our minds have been changed. However, as the poet Breyten Breytenbach put it:
One’s heart is aching: Why was it so difficult? Why did it take so long?
One’s heart is overjoyed: Nobody will ever be able to take away again from the
people these tiny pieces of future they are holding onto.
We love this country. We have been liberated from the baggage of an immoral system of government. Afrikaners can now resume their journey, galloping into the future. It has been proved that white Afrikaner and African loyalties need not be in conflict. It has also been
proved that Afrikaners do not need to be united in order for them to make a positive contribution to peace and development in South Africa.1
Connections for the Classroom...-
When the language was added to the new South African constitution that would pave the way for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Wessels writes: “The relief we felt was for the fact that we could have the full truth out in the open without vengeance.” Not everyone in South Africa has shared Wessels’s feelings of relief.
Take some time to look carefully at the words Wessels quotes from the South African constitution:
These can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding
but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need
for ubuntu but not for victimization. Circle those phrases and words that have the most meaning for you. Discuss them in a small group. Do you think the idealism of the language—truth without vengeance—is attainable? What would be some real obstacles to achieving such goals?
- Wessels talks about the personal struggle he had over some key symbols of his country—the flag and anthem. He writes, “Although there remained a place in history for the anthem... and for the flag, we had to begin right then to campaign in a sympathetic and sensitive way for the development of symbols that would unite us all.” What was the importance of Wessels taking this small stand? Do you think his choice made a difference?
Think about those two symbols in your own country; the flag and anthem. What associations do they have for you? Can you imagine circumstances in which you might choose to, as Wessels says, “part with them for good?”
1 “The End of an Era: The Liberation and Confession of an Afrikaner,” by Leon Wessels. From The Post-Apartheid Constitutions: Perspectives on South Africa’s Basic Law, by Penelope Andrews and Stephen Ellman (Ohio University Press, Ohio, co-published with Witwaters and University Press, Johannesburg) 2001, p. 44.
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