For justice and reconciliation to come: the TRC archive, big business and the demand for material reparations

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511575419.008

7 - For justice and reconciliation to come: the TRC archive, big business and the demand for material reparations

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2009

Jaco Barnard-Naudé

Edited by

François du Bois and

Antje du Bois-Pedain

Show author details

François du Bois: Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Antje du Bois-Pedain: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

Book contents

Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been described as an exercise in remembering, which, according to Brent Harris, is ‘a quintessentially archival exercise’. The remembering function of the TRC was articulated in its founding Act as the task of putting together ‘as complete a picture’ of the past as possible. The report produced by the TRC in fulfilment of this mandate can therefore be seen as an attempt to ensure the public availability of ‘memory in the form of documents’ for generations to come.

The function of the TRC has, on the other hand, also been described as closing ‘a horrendous chapter in the life of our nation’. As a product of the negotiated settlement between those who wanted retribution and those who begged for forgiveness, the TRC was part and parcel of South Africa's new beginning as a constitutional democracy. It was to assemble an archive of South Africa's divided past that would make it possible to anticipate a future that could ‘once and for all’ close the book on the past.

The remembering/forgetting binary as it relates to perceptions of the TRC's functions come together in the TRC's Report as the official archive of South Africa's apartheid past. The critical point is that this archive had to remember in order to make it possible to forget, which is another way of saying that the TRC's task was to commence the work of reconciliation in South Africa.

Type: Chapter
Information: Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa , pp. 172 - 205

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575419.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Freud, Sigmund, ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ in Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle and other Writings, trans. Reddick, John (New York: Penguin, 2003) 43Google Scholar

Freud, Sigmund, ‘The Uncanny’, in Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by and trans. Strachey, James (London: The Hogarth Press, 1953) 219Google Scholar

Derrida, Jacques, Archive Fever, trans. Prenowitz, Eric (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) at 10–2Google Scholar

Krog, Antjie, Country of My Skull (Johannesburg: Random House, 1998)Google Scholar

Nattrass, Nicoli, ‘Controversies about Capitalism and Apartheid in South Africa: An Economic Perspective’ (1991) 17 Journal of Southern African Studies 654.CrossRef Google Scholar

Marle, Karin, ‘Law's Time, Particularity and Slowness’ (2003) 19 South African Journal on Human Rights 239 at 243Google Scholar

Jameson, Fredric, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (London: Methuen & Co, 1981)Google Scholar

Mamdani, Mahmood, When Does Reconciliation Turn into a Denial of Justice?, Sam Molutshungu Memorial Lectures (Pretoria: HSRC Publishers, 1998) at 14.Google Scholar

Kennedy, Duncan, ‘Stages of the Decline of the Public/Private Distinction’ (1982) 130 Pennsylvania Law Review 1349.Google Scholar

Plimmer, Fleur, ‘Safety is a Daily Concern’ (1995) 4(6) The Shopsteward.Google Scholar

Manson, Andrew and Mbenga, Bernard, ‘ “The Richest Tribe in Africa”: Platinum-Mining and the Bafokeng in South Africa's North West Province, 1965–1999’ (2003) 29 Journal of Southern African Studies 25.CrossRef Google Scholar

Feinstein, Charles H., An Economic History of South Africa: Conquest, Discrimination and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRef Google Scholar

Bond, Patrick, ‘Truth-time for Corporate South Africa?’ (1998) 18(4) Multinational Monitor.Google Scholar

Webster, Eddie, ‘Background to the Supply and Control of Labour in the Goldmines’ in Webster, Eddie (ed.), Essays in Southern African Labour History (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1978)Google Scholar

Osborne, Michael, ‘Apartheid and the Alien Torts Act: Global Justice Meets Sovereign Equality’ in Plessis, Max du and Pete, Steve (eds.), Repairing the Past? International Perspectives on Reparations for Gross Human Rights Violations (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2007)Google Scholar

Hart, Gillian, Disabling Globalization. Places of Power in Post-apartheid South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)Google Scholar

Kujundžić, Dragan, ‘Archigraphia: On the Future of Testimony and the Archive to Come’ (2003) 25 Discourse166.Google Scholar

Bell, Terry and Ntsebeza, Dumisa Buhle, Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth (Cape Town: RedWorks, 2001)Google Scholar

Freud, Sigmund, Forgetting Things (London: Penguin, 2005)Google Scholar

Derrida, Jacques, ‘Archive Fever in South Africa’ in Hamilton, Carolynet al. (eds.), Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town: David Philip, 2002) 38.CrossRef Google Scholar

Cilliers, Paul, ‘Complexity, Ethics and Justice’ (2004) 5 Journal for Humanistics (Tijdschrift voor Humanistiek)19.Google Scholar

Harris, Verne, ‘Contesting Remembering and Forgetting: The Archive of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ (2002) InnovationGoogle Scholar

Cixous, Helene, Stigmata: Escaping Texts (New York: Routledge, 1998)Google Scholar

Bell, David, ‘Infinite Archives’ (2004) 33 SubStanceCrossRef Google Scholar

Cornell, Drucilla, The Philosophy of the Limit (New York: Routledge, 1992)Google Scholar

Moon, Claire, ‘Reconciliation as Therapy and Compensation’ in Veitch, Scott (ed.), Law and the Politics of Reconciliation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)Google Scholar

du Toit, Fanie, ‘Victims Challenge Business’ in Villa-Vicencio, Charles and du Toit, Fanie (eds.), Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: 10 Years On (Cape Town: David Philip, 2006) 179.Google Scholar

Hall, David, ‘The Spirit of Reparation’ (2004) 24 Boston College Third World Law Journal1Google Scholar

Hylton, Keith N., ‘A Framework for Reparations Claims’ (2004) 24 Boston College Third World Law Journal31Google Scholar

Brophy, Alfred L., ‘Reparations Talk: Reparations for Slavery and the Tort Law Analogy’ (2004) 24 Boston College Third World Law Journal81Google Scholar

Bond, Patrick, ‘The ANC's “Left Turn” and South African Sub-Imperialism’ (2004) 31 Review of African Political Economy616CrossRef Google Scholar

Armstrong, Margalynne, ‘Reparations Litigation: What about Unjust Enrichment?’ (2002) 81 Oregon Law Review771Google Scholar

Visser, Daniel and Roux, Theunis, ‘Giving Back the Country: South Africa's Restitution of Land Rights Act, 1994 in context’ in Rwelamira, Medard and Werle, Gerhard (eds.), Confronting Past Injustices: Approaches to Amnesty, Punishment, Reparation and Restitution in South Africa and Germany (Durban: Butterworths, 1996) 89Google Scholar

Kemp, Gerhard P., ‘Moving from Conflict to Reconciliation: A Brief Evaluation of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ (2005) 6 Griffin's View on International and Comparative Law 5 at 11Google Scholar