Of particular interest to me was the lack of participation by women in these sessions. The brilliant exception was panelist Dr. Louise Kretzschmar, Professor of Theological Ethics at the University of South Africa. Otherwise, only men spoke on panels and from the audience. Finally, at the end of the second, all-male session I asked what role women had played in the Truth & Reconciliation Model. The question was dismissed with a single troubling sentence that began, “Women were the majority victims in apartheid…” and concluded with an off-handed assurance that they had a role in the Truth & Reconciliation process.
Did Truth & Reconciliation succeed? One panelist observed that in the end, nobody was satisfied. “So yes,” he concluded, “it succeeded. Peace cannot be achieved by requiring that you come to where I stand. In the end, all must sacrifice and move to a different place.” The sobering reality brought to light in this difficult process is, however, that victims will always be required to pay more than victimizers.
Ultimately, the hope of Truth & Reconciliation was to insure that the past, however evil, would not be given the power to kill the future. The work is far from finished. Two weeks of travel after the BWA Congress revealed apartheid’s enduring legacy in the high walls around homes in every white neighborhood topped with electric fencing and razor wire, and with large metal “armed response” security signs by the gates. When I named the guest house where we were staying in Stellenbosch, the black restaurant host’s first comment was, “They have good security.”
What can South Africa’s experience teach Americans? The lesson is embodied for me in the words of one of the panelists, Rev. Kevin Roy, a white South African and anti-apartheid leader, who learned growing up never to shake the hand of a black man. “I am always suspicious of people who say, ‘I’m not a racist.’ I say, ‘Congratulations. I’m still struggling.’”
Louise Kretzschmar showing photo of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu while talking about South Africa's
Truth & Reconciliation Commission.