* In the spirit of blogging-for-building, I post these thoughts in response to my homegirl Holiday’s request (see “comments” under last week’s post)… thanks, sis. Looking forward to your thoughts. *
I was in the sixth grade when Nelson Mandela was freed from 27 years in prison. At age 11, I made sense of the news in undoubtedly middle-school ways, as I tried to fit his release into a context that I understood. As a biracial pre-teen, I was in the process of constructing my own hybridized identity: rockin Cross Colours Malcolm X gear while standing to pledge allegiance to the flag; actions that simultaneously set me apart from my White and Black classmates, respectively. Regarding Mandela’s emancipation, I recall a sense of cloudy exhilaration – excited because bad people would now quickly change their ways; fuzzy because the world seemed much bigger then. South Africa seemed so far away.
In the years that followed, we all watched South Africa emerge from the wretched constraints of Apartheid. We watched as the government oversaw the end of de jure Apartheid structures in 1991, and as the people of South Africa elected Mandela president three years later. In line with the tradition of unparalleled strength and progress, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led South African folks into the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process 1996.
History offers us multiple examples of ways to deal with crimes against humanity. It seems that on one end of the spectrum, we have seen criminal court proceedings, including indictment, and conviction (remember the Nuremburg Trials, following WWII). On the other end of the spectrum, we have seen blanket amnesty programs, that often coincide with the inability of those in power to acknowledge that a wrong had been committed at all (remember the lack of repercussions for the thousands of individuals who owned slaves in the United States). Somewhere in the middle of those extremes lie Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs). If we can imagine the continuum taking on a three-dimensional quality, TRCs may exist somewhere above blanket-conviction or blanket-amnesty programs, as they seek humanity, common ground, and growth. And if we can imagine the continuum taking on a four-dimensional quality, we can begin to understand the way TRCs necessarily transcend time and space to allow people the room necessary for authentic healing. I speak of TRCs pluralistically, because South Africa is not the only place to have participated in such processes. They had TRCs in Sierra Leon, Guatemala, Peru, and several other places too.
Engaging in such a process requires an unbelievable amount of courage, as honesty is the conduit for reconciliation. When brutality has defined groups’ interactions, truth is unavoidably painful. So perhaps we must ask ourselves if acute pain for a finite period is more bearable than dull pain for eternity. Perhaps the hope that is woven into participants’ testimonies has both therapeutic and imaginative powers.
Keeping with the essence of an e-building session, let me pass the mic: if we could initiate a TRC, how would it look? What do we think needs healing? How would a global TRC take shape? Who would participate in a national TRC? How would we design a state-wide TRC? What about one for our cities? Do we need a TRC in our homes?
…and we can keep this going, y’all…
How might we construct a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for ourselves?
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1 comment:
i tend to take a theoretical approach to all topics and i guess this will be no different :o)
these are such great questions and i am intrigued because i am at a loss for words regarding how to answer: what would a global TRC look like?
i think this particular wordlessness, in a sense, can prove problematic for TRCs that seeks "Truth." i'm all on board for truth and reconciliation but i wonder: what happens when the weight of history is so unbearable, so insurmountable, so brutal that it becomes difficult - if not impossible - to speak truthfully about it? what are other ways that truth can be spoken and ascertained if we lack the access to language that can encapsulate how we feel, thus, lacking cache with regard to that which is constructed as "truth?"
so: how might i construct a TRC for myself? i would first have to acknowledge the limits of such a project (i.e., the restrictions acute pain poses), the limits of language (in a judeo-christian society that privileges the "word" as truth) as well as the limits of "truth" because truth is so very subjective that it is impossible to pin down, to hold, to control, to seize. moving from that acknowledgement a TRC project i'd engage would include speaking, singing, wailing, crying, dancing, painting, writing: it would be a mishmash of expressions that would allow the confusing emotions i have to evince and flourish and i don't think i'm far off point, either. if the TRCs seek to affirm humanity, then i think a multiplicity of expression is of necessity because i do not want to privilege one sort of knowledge or way of being over another, one type of expression as more "truthful" than another.
and as you note, this would be an acutely painful process; a confusing one as well...but all with the goal of the eventual subsiding of that pain and confusion...
to be sure, a sense of wordlessness does not mean that people cannot speak presently. i look at everything i wrote and still believe i have not come near the sense that i am trying to convey...
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