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Abstract
For the survivor of an apartheid-era political shooting in East London, South Africa, truth has proven elusive. The early promise of South Africa’s democracy misled Neville Beling into testifying to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but the result of that excursion was a hard and inevitable realization that truth is, at best, partial, and that living without it requires truth of another sort—reconciliation comes in many forms. This essay blends critical and creative modes of life writing, at once investigative and affective, to explore aspects of Beling’s lifelong quest to understand the circumstances that led to his traumatic injuries, and to meet the man who shot him.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Roland did not die that night. In the chaos following the shooting, he returned to the teargas-filled room again and again, seeking his cousin.
2 Interview with Neville Beling, 13 January 2007.
3 I am exploring these and other narrative concerns in my ongoing doctoral project. Aspects of Beling’s story and those of other victims of the first Highgate massacre are also addressed by Keggie and Edlmann.
4 Alexievich, “On the Battle Lost,” 7–8.
5 Despite the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there are numerous unresolved apartheid attacks and deaths.
6 Alexievich, “On the Battle Lost,” 6.
7 Department of Justice, Report: Volume Five, 237.
8 Department of Justice, Report: Volume Two, 585.
9 Department of Justice, Report: Volume Three, 506.
10 Horspool, “History Revision.”
11 Paris, Long Shadows, 4.
12 Richards, “He Who Controls.”
13 Paris, Long Shadows, 449.
14 As my essay goes on to show, the experience of being silenced by various forms of authority emerges as a recurring figure in Neville Beling’s testimony.
15 Young, “Narrative and Healing,” 145, 146.
16 Richards, “He Who Controls.”
17 Paris, Long Shadows, 4.
18 Paris, Long Shadows, 449.
19 “s.v. filament” Collins Dictionary, 566.
20 He never called me. He didn’t have that sort of money. Via an SMS text message, we had established that both of us would be free to chat, and I’d call him on the Telkom after-hours “cheap” plan.
21 Interview with Neville Beling, 14 August 2007.
22 Interview with Neville Beling, 8 November 2006.
23 Department of Justice, Report: Volume One, 7, 22.
24 Interview with Neville Beling, 21 July 2007.
25 Graham, “The Truth Commission,” 18.
26 Neville’s surname is consistently misspelled in the public record—an instance of persistent misrepresentation even when revisionist history seeks to correct master narratives.
27 Human Rights Violations Submissions Questions and Answers, n.p.
28 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Human Rights Violations Submissions Questions and Answers, n.p
29 Human Rights Violations Submissions Questions and Answers, n.p.
30 Human Rights Violations Submissions Questions and Answers, n.p.
31 Human Rights Violations Submissions Questions and Answers, n.p.
32 Human Rights Violations Submissions Questions and Answers, n.p.
33 Human Rights Violations Submissions Questions and Answers, n.p.
34 Graham, “The Truth Commission,” 18.
35 Interview with Neville Beling, 21 July 2007.
36 Young, “Narrative and Healing,” 146.
37 Interview with Neville Beling, 21 July 2007.
38 Interview with Neville Beling, 8 November 2006.
39 Paris, Long Shadows, 252.
40 The Day of the Vow marked the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838 when a few hundred Boer pioneers defeated several thousand Zulu warriors after vowing to celebrate forever the honor of God if victory was theirs.
41 Interview with Neville Beling, 8 November 2006.
42 Interview with Neville Beling, 18 December 2008.
43 Interview with Neville Beling, 21 July 2007.
44 Interview with Neville Beling, 21 July 2007.
45 Department of Justice, Report: Volume Three, 149.
46 Paris, Long Shadows, 274.
47 Interview with Neville Beling, 11 February 2007.
48 Paris, Long Shadows, 282.
49 Department of Justice, Report: Volume Five, 197–198.
50 Department of Justice, Report: Volume Five, 199.
51 Interview with Neville Beling, 13 January 2007.
52 Interview with Neville Beling, 11 February 2007.
53 It is unlikely that the APLA was responsible for the Highgate attack on 1 May 1993 because of the following circumstances: APLA operatives never concealed their identities; no other APLA attack featured AK-47 rifles; ballistics experts failed to trace the bullets found at the Highgate attack; immediately before an attack, APLA operatives routinely hijacked a car to use as a temporary getaway vehicle, but not a single car was reported stolen in the East London area in the days preceding the attack; APLA operatives were poor marksmen owing to lack of practice, whereas the pattern of attack at the Highgate Hotel that night was remarkably precise; and despite the APLA’s excellent record-keeping of its chains of command, Letlapha Mphahlele was unable to locate a shred of documentary evidence relating to this attack. These points were raised by various participants in the mediation between Mphahlele and all the Highgate survivors, held at the Kennaway Hotel in East London on 28 November 2006, which I attended as an observer. Mphahlele and former police investigator Daryl Els corroborated these and other points. See Flanagan, “Investigator.”
54 Interview with Neville Beling, 17 March 2007.
55 Department of Justice, Report: Volume Two, 586.
56 Rousseau, “The Farm,” 367.
57 Interview with Neville Beling, 11 February 2007.
58 Rousseau, “The Farm,” 367.
59 Rousseau, “The Farm,” 367.
60 Andrews, Shaping History, 168.
61 Rousseau, “The Farm,” 351.