FROM APARTHEID TO DEMOCRACY
EDITED BY CHERYL GLENN AND J. MICHAEL HOGAN
THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Editorial Board:
Robert Asen (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
Debra Hawhee (The Pennsylvania State University)
Peter Levine (Tufts University)
Steven J. Mailloux (University of California, Irvine)
Krista Ratcliffe (Marquette University)
Karen Tracy (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Kirt Wilson (The Pennsylvania State University)
David Zarefsky (Northwestern University)
Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation is a series of groundbreaking monographs and edited volumes focusing on the character and quality of public discourse in politics and culture. It is sponsored by the Center for Democratic Deliberation, an interdisciplinary center for research, teaching, and outreach on issues of rhetoric, civic engagement, and public deliberation.
A complete list of books in this series is located at the back of this volume.
FROM APARTHEID TO DEMOCRACY
DELIBERATING TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
IN SOUTH AFRICA
KATHERINE ELIZABETH MACK
The Pennsylvania State University Press | University Park, Pennsylvania
An earlier version of some material in chapter 2 appeared in “Remembering Winnie: Public Memory and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa,” in Global Memoryscapes: Contesting Remembrance in a Transnational Age, edited by Kendall R. Phillips and G. Mitchell Reyes (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011).
An earlier version of some material in chapter 3 appeared in “Hearing Women’s Silence in Transitional South Africa: Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit,” in Silence and Listening as Rhetorical Arts, edited by Cheryl Glenn and Krista Ratcliffe (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2011).
The illustrations in chapter 4 appeared in Jillian Edelstein, Truth and Lies: Stories from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa (London: Granta Books, 2001). Reproduced by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mack, Katherine Elizabeth, 1974– , author.
From apartheid to democracy : deliberating truth and reconciliation in South Africa / Katherine Elizabeth Mack.
pages cm — (Rhetoric and democratic deliberation)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-271-06497-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. South Africa. Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
2. Rhetoric—South Africa.
3. Deliberative democracy—South Africa.
4. Reconciliation—Social aspects—South Africa.
5. Post-apartheid era—South Africa.
6. Apartheid—South Africa.
I. Title. II. Series: Rhetoric and democratic deliberation.
DT1974.2.M33 2014
305.800968—dc23
2014023266
Copyright © 2014 The Pennsylvania State University
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Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
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The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
This book is printed on paper that contains 30% post-consumer waste.
In memory of my father,
ALAN G. MACK,
for inspiring in me a zest for life, and for supporting my curiosity and wanderlust no matter where they took me.
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Rhetoricity of Truth Commissions
Chapter 1: Localizing Transitional Justice
Chapter 2: Ambivalent Speech, Resonant Silences
Chapter 3: Contesting Accountability
Chapter 4: Imagining Reconciliation
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index
And why does it always have to be people like me who have to sacrifice, why are we always the ones who have to make concessions when something has to be conceded, why always me who has to bite her tongue, why?
—PAULINA IN ARIEL DORFMAN’S Death and the Maiden
It might seem odd to begin a book about the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) with a discussion of a play set in “a country that is probably Chile” by a Chilean playwright (ix). Allow me to explain why I do so. Death and the Maiden’s clear articulation of the challenges
