Overcoming apartheid: can truth reconcile a divided nation?

Abstract

Throughout the world, truth commissions have been (and are being) constructed under the hope that discovering the ‘truth’ about a country's past conflicts will somehow contribute to ‘reconciliation’. Most of such efforts point to South Africa's truth and reconciliation process as an exemplar of the powerful influence of truth finding. But has truth actually contributed to reconciliation in South Africa? At present, no‐one can answer this question since no rigorous and systematic assessment of the success of the truth and reconciliation process has ever been conducted.

This paper directly investigates the hypothesis that truth leads to reconciliation. Based on a survey of 3,700 South Africans in 2001, it begins by giving both ‘truth’ and ‘reconciliation’ clear conceptual and operational meaning. Empirical evidence, is then given, that the ‘truth’ as promulgated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is fairly widely accepted by South Africans, of all races; that at least some degree of reconciliation characterizes South Africa today; and that the collective memory produced by the process (‘truth’) did indeed contribute to reconciliation. I conclude by considering whether the South African case is unique or whether other divided countries might be able to use a similar process to propel themselves toward a more peaceful and democratic future

Notes

James L. Gibson is Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government, Department of Political Science, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, USA. Also a Fellow, Centre for Comparative and International Politics, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

In the middle of 2001, President Thabo Mbeki charged the TRC with producing a sixth volume – a codicil to the original report. That volume had not yet appeared as of this writing (January 2003), mainly due to litigation by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

But see Jeffery (1999), who complains about numerous inaccuracies and bias in the TRC's history of several incidents.

For a most important and useful collection of essays about the TRC, see Villa‐Vicencio and Verwoerd (2000).

See the widely popular and much discussed Krog (1998); see also Orr (2000). Amy Biehl's father is one of the most poignant examples. A statement by Biehl's parents is included in the decision granting amnesty to her killers. See Amnesty Decision: Vusumzi Samuel Ntamo, (4734/97); Ntombeki Ambrose Peni, (5188/97); Mzikhona Eazi Nofemela (5282/97); Mongesi Christopher Manqina (0669/96) available on the TRC website [www.truth.org.za/amntrans/ct3/BIEHL01.htm].

See Wilson (2001) for a critique of the TRC for injecting religious overtones into its work.

For a more detailed consideration of race in South Africa, see Gibson and Gouws (2003). In general, I accept the racial categories as identified by the editor of a special issue of Daedalus focused on South Africa: ‘Many of the authors in this issue observe the South African convention of dividing the country’s population into four racial categories: white (of European descent), coloured (of mixed ancestry), Indian (forebears from the Indian subcontinent), and African. The official nomenclature for “Africans” has itself varied over the years, changing from “native” to “Bantu” in the middle of the apartheid era, and then changing again to “black” or, today, “African/black”. All of these terms appear in the essays that follow' (Graubard, 2001, p. viii). Note as well that Desmond Tutu felt obliged to offer a similar caveat about race in South Africa in the Final Report of the TRC. Though these racial categories were employed by the apartheid régime to divide and control the population, thy are nonetheless labels that South Africans use to refer to themselves (see, for example, Gibson and Gouws, 2003). I use the term ‘coloured’ to signify that this is a distinctly South African construction of race, and ‘Asian origin’ to refer to South Africans drawn from the Indian subcontinent.

For a major study of political tolerance in South Africa see Gibson and Gouws (2003).

This analysis is based on a representative survey of the South African mass public conducted in 2000/2001. A total of 3,727 face‐to‐face interviews were completed. The average interview lasted 84 minutes. The overall response rate for the survey was approximately 87 percent. Nearly all the respondents were interviewed by an interviewer of their own race. Interviews were conducted in the respondents language of choice, with a large plurality of the interviews being done in English (45 percent). The questionnaire was first prepared in English and then translated into Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, North Sotho, South Sotho, Tswana and Tsonga. The sample included representative over‐samples of whites, coloured people and those of Asian origin.

My assessments of Table 1 are based on the following judgements of the average group scores on each of the sub‐dimensions: 1.0–1.9: not at all reconciled; 2.0–2.9: not very reconciled; 3.0–3.9: somewhat reconciled; and 4.0–5.0: highly reconciled.

A substantial empirical literature on collective memories exists. See, for examples, Schuman and Corning, 2000; Jennings, 1996; and Schuman and Scott, 1989.

I use the term ‘accepting the veracity’ to indicate accepting that the statement is either true or false, depending upon the coding scheme reported in the text.

See Gibson (2004) for a detailed justification of this claim.

In 1970, Resolution 2671 of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) declared that the policies of apartheid were contrary to the charter of the UN and constituted a crime against humanity. According to Vestergaard (2001, p. 25), the truth and reconciliation process ‘has been central to the creation of the new South Africa, as it affirms one of its fundamental premises—that apartheid was a “crime against humanity”.’

H. F. Verwoerd, the principal architect of modern apartheid, propounded the ideology of ‘separate development.’ Defending the viewpoint in the 1960s, Prime Minister John Vorster spoke of ‘recognising the right of existence of distinct nations and colour groups’ and of ‘providing each with opportunities to develop according to their ability and with the maintenance of their identity’ (quoted in Giliomee and Schlemmer 1989, p. 64, citing Die Burger, 18 May 1968). Note that the ANC has always explicitly rejected the ideology of separate development.

As repugnant as apartheid was, research has consistently shown that not all South Africans reject the apartheid system. For instance, based on a survey conducted in 1996, Gibson and Gouws show that about one‐fourth of black South Africans claimed to have lived better under apartheid than at the time of the survey (2003, p. 198). Two lessons seem appropriate: Repressive political systems do not repress every single citizen, and citizens reach varying compromises and accommodations with such systems.

Desmond Tutu asserts in the Final Report that: ‘We believe we have provided enough of the truth about our past for there to be a consensus about it. There is consensus that atrocious things were done on all sides’ (TRC, 1998, Volume 1, p. 18).

Complex issues of causality are involved in these relationships that are too complicated to address in this paper. (For a complete statistical analysis of the causality issue see Gibson (2004).) The conclusion of that analysis is that truth largely causes reconciliation, not vice versa.

The intense antipathy focused within the black community in South Africa should not be overlooked. Most of the political violence in South Africa in recent times has been black‐on‐black violence, even if the root cause of such violence can be found in the instigations of the apartheid state.

Pumla Gobodo‐Madikizela, a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee of the TRC, concludes that it is plausible that whites did not know of many of the reprehensible activities of the apartheid government. (See Gobodo‐Madikizela 2003, pp. 26, 109). She refers to this as an ‘apartheid of the mind.’

During June 2000, six focus groups were held, two each in Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. Focus group participants, who of course could not constitute a representative sample of any population, were recruited by the survey firm staff and were paid to participate in the discussions.

Because the information produced by the TRC was in part redundant, the effect of truth on reconciliation is likely weaker among blacks than among whites. This probably accounts for the weaker correlation coefficient between truth and reconciliation I reported above for black South Africans.

As Iyengar and Simon (2000, p. 156) observe, the image of President Ford attempting to eat a tamale without first shucking it was a very clear signal to Hispanics in the US of the insensitivity of the president to this constituency. Subtle messages are often more effective at social persuasion than more explicit appeals to attitude change.

It is beyond the scope of this analysis to assess the macro‐level factors that allowed the TRC to act impartially. Perhaps the fact that South Africa's transition was brokered, based on a political and military stalemate, has something to do with how the TRC functioned. Perhaps it is important as well that all sides in the struggle had to live together after the transition; partition of the country was viewed by nearly everyone as unacceptable (just as federalism was viewed by most as desirable). For an excellent macro‐level analysis of truth commissions, see Hayner (2002).

See Marx (2002) for an explication of this point. Marx is particularly concerned about the ways in which the African concept ubuntu—from the Xhosa expression umuntu ngumuntu ngabanye bantu (people are people through other people)—and traditional African collectivism foster conformity and undermine the legitimacy of political conflict. The truth and reconciliation process, and Archbishop Tutu in particular, often referred to ubuntu as essential to the process of reconciliation.