No Future Without Forgiveness

Part of the TRC’s charge was to “rehabilitate the civil and human dignity of the victims” (91). The affront of apartheid and the struggle against it were religious. Noting that the apartheid’s perpetrators and victims read the same bible, Tutu explains that the contradiction between the Bible’s teaching that each person is created in God’s image and apartheid’s abominations motivated many to fight for justice.

Apartheid degraded people in many ways. Tutu notes that the “daily pinpricks, the little discourtesies, the minute humiliations” (96) ate away at dignity even more than the atrocities did. Under the pass law system, Black people 16 and older had to carry a pass, which police could demand anytime. The passes restricted where Black people could go. Officials could arrest and fine a person for not having a pass or for being in an unauthorized location. The restrictions were bad enough, but the implementation of these rules—by both Black and white officials—was “‘crude, cruel and unfeeling’” (99).

When the apartheid government came to power in 1948, it forcibly removed 3.5 million people in the name of racial segregation “residentially, at school, at play, at work” (99) and prohibited mixed marriages. It moved Black people from their homes to ghetto townships with “matchbox-type houses clustered together” (100). Tutu cites the example of District Six in Cape Town, once a vibrant multi-racial and multi-religious community, and describes the long-term pain of losing one’s home. He gives the example of one man who never unpacked, as he hoped to return home—but died before he could. Tutu shares the humiliation he felt when his daughter asked to go to a playground within sight and he had to say no because it did not allow Black children. Segregated and denied decent jobs, Black people received poor health care, inadequate housing, and an education that equipped them only for “perpetual serfdom” (102).

Although the oppression of Black people dates to the early settlers, the TRC limited its scope to the period between the Sharpeville Massacre on March 21, 1960, and Mandela’s inauguration on May 10, 1994. This limitation made the TRC’s task manageable. The Sharpeville Massacre spurred the apartheid government to ban Black organizations, which caused the anti-apartheid movement to shift toward violent tactics. The TRC confined its authority to gross human rights violations, such as killing, abduction, and torture. Importantly, this definition made the “political affiliation of the perpetrator” of “total irrelevance” (106). Critics of the TRC objected to the legal equivalence between the acts of a racist government and those fighting for liberation. In defense of this approach, Tutu stipulates that the democratic government had declared apartheid a crime against humanity, and even those fighting for a just cause must use just means.

The TRC reached out to as many South Africans as possible and eventually received more than 20,000 statements. It ensured that the hearing environment had comfortable seating arrangements for victims, made translators available for all languages, and had helpers (or briefers) sit with the victims. The hearings received saturation coverage as well. The first victim hearing, held in East London in April 1996, was solemn and “packed to the rafters—mainly with black people” (112). The meeting’s being held on the Eastern Cape was significant because as the site of the first wars between white people and indigenous people, it was the “birthplace of black resistance to the depredations of white expansionism” (115)—and because it was the birthplace of many Black leaders, including Mandela. After this meeting and hearing the stories of human suffering, Tutu was impressed with the generous spirit among victims who were not “consumed by bitterness and hatred” (120) but wanted to know the truth and the perpetrator so as to forgive. To do so, all first had to stare “the beast of our dark past in the eye” (120).

Tutu contemplates the many “horrors some of God’s children” suffered at “the hands of God’s other children” (123)—such as two World Wars, the Holocaust, and genocides in Rwanda—and wonders if God regrets creating humans. He then recounts several atrocities as perpetrators and victims described them to the TRC. Police officers appeared before the TRC and told of the state-directed crimes in which they took part. They described torture via electric shock, beatings, and brutal murders. In one case, the victim had 45 laceration and stab wounds, his throat slashed, his ears almost completely severed, and his stomach torn open. To hide these crimes, the perpetrators often burned the bodies. In a particularly egregious example, officers burned a man over a fire while having a barbecue next to the fire. The 1985 abduction and murder of the Cradock Four, per a police officer, was barbaric to make the killing appear as a vigilante attack. The police would sometimes recruit captured ANC activists to work for them in exchange for sparing their lives, refraining from torture, or not sending them to prison. Such individuals, called askaris, would lead activists, many of them young, to police traps and death.

Allegations of atrocities against the resistance forces arose as well. Multiple people spoke against Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who some said used a group of youths to terrorize anyone regarded as a spy for the police. In one well-known case, her bodyguard killed Stompie Seipei, a 14-year-old, after his kidnapping from the home of Reverend Paul Verryn, whom she falsely accused of abusing the child. Observing that apartheid was society’s primary cancer, one bishop noted that it had “‘touched many of apartheid’s opponents and eroded their knowledge of good and evil’” (137). Likewise, in the violent struggle against apartheid, several bombings killed innocent people.

The TRC heard from prisoners too. The treatment of political prisoners, whether they were guilty of violent crimes or not, involved atrocious human rights violations. The captors placed plastic bags over prisoners’ heads and isolated them in cells with “‘huge rats, the size of cats’” (139); raped women; and inflicted other forms of torture. At the first victim hearing, Tutu broke down crying after hearing the account of a man whom captors had subjected to the helicopter method, in which they handcuff the hands behind the back, manacle the ankles together, suspend the person upside down, and spin them around. Tutu resolved not to cry again because he did not want to take attention away from the victims.

Those guilty of such heinous acts were “quite ordinary folk” (144). After bearing witness to this “awful depth of depravity” (144), Tutu exposes another side of humanity and recounts many tales of “generosity of spirit” (144) despite incredible suffering. He tells of a white woman, severely injured in a bombing, wanting to meet the man who threw the grenade “‘in an attitude of forgiveness’” (147). A young Black woman, who lost her father to a brutal attack later attributed to the police, stated, “We do want to forgive but we don’t know whom to forgive” (149). At a hearing about the Bisho massacre, in which 30 people died after soldiers fired on unarmed demonstrators, the tension was at first palpable. However, when one officer genuinely apologized, the crowd of Black victims “broke out into thunderous applause” (151).

Tutu concludes the chapter noting that these people, capable of such extraordinary goodness, are not unusual. He cites cases in other countries in which the parents of murdered children forgave the perpetrators, for example. For this display of love and forgiveness, God can be proud. Only through such forgiveness can people move forward, as retaining bitterness and hatred victimizes people a second time. These reactions of genuine reconciliation, Tutu notes, offer hope that things can change.

According to its mandate, the TRC must promote national unity and reconciliation. Many who came to the TRC “experienced healing” (165). Victims gained affirmation by simply telling their stories after so long. One of the most difficult hearings was “the nine-day marathon” (167) inquiring into the activities of Madikizela-Mandela. She insisted that the hearings be public, which made them a media spectacle. Madikizela-Mandela had suffered terribly during apartheid. A “banned person” (168), she was “virtually under house arrest” (168) and banished to an area 480 miles from her home where the people spoke a different language. However, she was charismatic, a powerful speaker, and a “consummate politician” (168) and soon raised the political consciousness in her place of banishment. Tutu, who had a personal relationship with the Mandelas, acknowledges the “immense debt” that the struggle against apartheid owed to her. Nevertheless, she now stood accused of atrocities herself. In her testimony, she denied all the allegations against her. Tutu appealed to her, first by publicly praising her contributions to the struggle, professing his love for her family, and then asking her to “say there are things that went wrong” (174). She did so and told Stompie’s mother that she was sorry. While many considered her words a “lukewarm” (174) apology, Tutu was pleased. It was the first time that Madikizela-Mandela had apologized in public.

At another hearing, a police captain told of how he had given orders to special constables, or Kitskonstabels, to foment trouble between Black political rivals. This untrained group killed 11 apolitical people, mainly women and children, in error. The captain asked to visit the community to ask for forgiveness. In addition, the TRC finally heard the truth about a crime that the government had committed but blamed on an innocent Black person. The bombing of the South African Council of Churches headquarters in 1988 was the work of the Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok, and the police. However, the very same minister accused a woman (whom police detained for about six months) of this terrorist attack. Several other crimes, such as the Cradock Four murders and the Congress of South African Trade Unions bombing, were the work of the police. They were “not aberrations” but “an integral part of apartheid’s tenacious efforts to survive by undermining the rule of law” (180).

Even more devastating were the revelations at a public hearing about the Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program. It had done research into reducing the fertility of Black people, into finding bacteria that targeted only Black people, and into “[c]holera, botulism, anthrax, chemical poisoning, and the production of huge supplies of […] drugs of abuse, allegedly for crowd control” (182-83). Known attempts on the lives of Mandela and another leader in the anti-apartheid movement added to the outrage. Tutu wondered if the large supply of drugs in Black communities was part of a program to undermine morale.

The Dutch Reformed Church in Pretoria invited Tutu to preach, and he admits his apprehension. This posh church was the parish of former government members and until very recently had supported apartheid ardently. Now, however, it forthrightly admitted its error. Receiving a warm welcome, Tutu spoke of his vision of a united South Africa that benefitted all and described his devastation at the information that the CBW hearing had uncovered. The church’s pastor broke down, asking for forgiveness. In a poignant moment, Tutu and the pastor embraced and received a standing ovation.

Earlier in the TRC’s existence, Tutu had been impressed with the Dutch Reformed Church’s Presbytery of Stellenbosch. This Church did not “mince words” (187) in condemning its behavior. An exhibit at this hearing depicted key moments in the history of racism and resistance. Tutu recalls how the exhibit highlighted the plight of those who never saw the bodies of their loved ones. South Africa had well over 200 “disappeared persons” (189). Apartheid officials took many out of the country or buried them on farms. The pain for such victims’ families was especially acute because they could not be sure what had happened. As information became available via the TRC’s work, some of these bodies were recovered. In one instance, a man identified the remains of his loved one, saying, “This is my brother. I know those shoes. I bought them for him” (192).