Forgiving and forgetting: South African reality television, fatherhood and nation

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexia Smit
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Family Stories ◽  
Black South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
African Media ◽  
The Many

This article examines the presentation of mediated reconciliation on the South African reality television show Forgive and Forget (e.tv, 2007–2012). The show features a representation of Black South African masculinity that is located in the domestic realm and associated with care and emotion. This differs from the prominent figuring of Black masculinity in terms of the gangster trope in South African media. The national discourse on reconciliation and nation-building associated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission foregrounds certain political figures as fathers to the nation. On Forgive and Forget, this narrative is relocated in the domestic sphere with regard to representations of fathers and their children. While on its surface the programme retells a familiar narrative of national reconciliation through family stories, there is an evident tension between a somewhat contrived reconciliation and the many contextual, economic and social complexities of each forgiveness story. These tensions themselves provide a productive space for reflecting on reconciliation through the lens of the family.

scholarly journals The many 'faces' of history: Manly Pursuits and Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz at the interface of confrontation and reconciliation

Literator ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Wenzel
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Boer War ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
Historic Data ◽  
The Many ◽  
Past Injustices ◽  
The Relationship

Several English and Afrikaans novels written during the nineties focus on confrontation with the past by exposing past injustices and undermining various myths and legends constructed in support of ideological beliefs. This commitment has gradually assumed the proportions of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A comparison of two recent novels dealing with events preceding and during the Anglo-Boer War, Manly Pursuits by Ann Harries and Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz (In search of General Mannetjies Mentz) by Christoffel Coetzee provides an interesting angle to this debate. This article is an attempt to contextualise these novels within the larger framework of a contemporary South African reality; to acknowledge and reconcile, or assemble, disparate “faces” of a South African historical event at a specific moment in time. In Manly Pursuits, Ann Harries focuses on the arch imperialist, the “colossus of Africa”, Cecil John Rhodes, to expose the machinations behind the scenes in the “take over” of southern Africa, while in the Afrikaans novel, Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz, the General becomes the embodiment of collective guilt. Written within a postmodern paradigm, both texts problematize the relationship between history and fiction by revealing deviations from “historic data” suggesting alternate versions of such "documentation" and by juxtaposing the private lives of historical personages with their public images.

Disappointed Remains: Trauma, Testimony, and Reconciliation in Post-apartheid South Africa

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Field
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Trauma Survivors ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Apartheid Regime ◽  
Democratic Elections

The apartheid regime in South Africa and the fight against the same, followed by the reconciliation is the crux of this article. The first democratic elections held on April 27, 1994, were surprisingly free of violence. Then, in one of its first pieces of legislation, the new democratic parliament passed the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act of 1995, which created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. At the outset, the South African TRC promised to “uncover the truth” about past atrocities, and forge reconciliation across a divided country. As oral historians, we should consider the oral testimonies that were given at the Human Rights Victim hearings and reflect on the reconciliation process and what it means to ask trauma survivors to forgive and reconcile with perpetrators. This article cites several real life examples to explain the trauma and testimony of apartheid and post-apartheid Africa with a hint on the still prevailing disappointments and blurred memories.

scholarly journals Truth and reconciliation in South Africa: Hindu experiences and concerns

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
P.G.J. Meiring
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
The South ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Hindu Community ◽  
The Way

The author who served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), focuses on the Hindu experience in South Africa during the apartheid years. At a special TRC Hearing for Faith Communities (East London, 17-19 November 1997) two submissions by local Hindu leaders were tabled. Taking his cues from those submissions, the author discusses four issues: the way the Hindu community suffered during these years, the way in which some members of the Hindu community supported the system of apartheid, the role of Hindus in the struggle against apartheid, and finally the contribution of the Hindu community towards reconciliation in South Africa. In conclusion some notes on how Hindus and Christians may work together in th

'Papieren' voor de toekomst

1970 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 43-52
Author(s):  
Gustaaf Janssens
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The South ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Cultural Perception ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Government

A purely cultural perception of records and archives is one-sided andincomplete. Records and archival documents are necessary to confirm therights and the obligations of both the government and the citizens. "Therecords are crucial to hold us accountable", says archbishop D. Tutu, formerpresident of the South African 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission'. Forthis reason, the government should organize the archives in such a way thatarchival services can fulfil their task as guardians of society's memorie.Citizens' rights and archives have a close relationship.

scholarly journals The knowledge and perceptions of history students of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Oelofse ◽  
A Oosthuysen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Mixed Method Research ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
The University

Using the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC) and the concept of reconciliation as a case study, the article attempts to assess the knowledge and understanding of the registered undergraduate history students at the University of the Free State’s main campus about the TRC and the concept and process of reconciliation in the country at large. The research will firstly assess whether the younger generation of students, specifically students taking history as a subject, have any knowledge of such a significant and contemporary event in South African historiography as the TRC process. Secondly, in relation to the aims and recommendations of the TRC and against the background of reconciliation efforts in the country, to perceive the views and thoughts of undergraduate history students on the progress in reconciliation endeavours in South Africa. As a result, a sample of 128 undergraduate history students was randomly selected to complete a quantitative questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of both closed and open-ended questions. Group interviews, as a qualitative research method, were added and used to conduct interviews with 16 undergraduate history students selected randomly and answers were recorded. Accordingly, an explanatory mixed- method research method approach was employed by implementing both the qualitative and quantitative method.

Crimes and Accountability in Shakespeare

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodor Meron
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Final Solution ◽  
The South ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Holocaust

Accountability for crimes, a theme central to Shakespeare’s plays, is also extraordinarily pertinent to our times. Newspapers have reported on the care taken by the leaders of the former Yugoslavia to order atrocities against “enemy” populations only in the most indirect and euphemistic way. Even the Nazi leaders constantly resorted to euphemisms in referring to the Holocaust. No explicit written order from Hitler to carry out the final solution has ever been found. At the height of their power, the Nazis treated the data on the killing of Jews as top secret. Similarly, a high-ranking member of the former security police told the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that written instructions to kill antiapartheid activists were never given; squad members who carried out the killings simply got “a nod of the head or a wink-wink kind of attitude.”

Commissioning Truth and Reconciliation

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-131
Author(s):  
Claire Whitlinger
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

This chapter explores the relationship between the 2004 commemoration in Philadelphia, Mississippi and the Mississippi Truth Project, a state-wide project initially modelled after South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After reviewing the history of transitional justice efforts in the United States and the social scientific literature on how civil society-based truth commissions emerge, the chapter demonstrates how the 2004 commemoration and subsequent trial of Edgar Ray Killen precipitated the formation of a state-wide truth commission when previous efforts had failed. In short, this research finds that the commemoration mobilized mnemonic activists; concentrated local, state, and global resources; broadened political opportunity; and shifted the political culture of the state. Despite these developments—and years of project planning—the Mississippi Truth Project changed course in 2009, abandoning a South African-style truth commission in favour of grassroots memory projects and oral history collection. The chapter thus sheds lights on the possibilities and perils of pursuing non-state truth commissions.

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