In the epigraph above, Paulina asks why she should not take revenge against the man who raped and tortured her. She ventriloquizes the frustration of survivors of human rights violations who reject the “justice” a truth commission offers: justice in the form of a truthful account and acknowledgment of the abuse that victims suffered rather than punishment of those who did or supported that abuse. Ironically, perhaps, Paulina also expresses the resentment of some perpetrators, who claim that they acted in good faith and for a righteous cause and should therefore not be required to disclose the details of their actions before a commission. Suffice it to say, truth commissions never satisfy all parties.
Death and the Maiden is relevant to my project in other ways as well. The Chilean truth commission influenced the form and ideology of the South African commission, a transnational circulation of ideas that I discuss in detail in chapter 1. More importantly, Dorfman’s motivations for writing Death and the Maiden, and the play’s circulation, underscore this project’s argument about the tight braid of cultural and political projects. Dorfman hoped that Death, like Aristotelian drama, would be “a work of art that might help a collective to purge itself, through pity and terror, in other words to force the spectators to confront those predicaments that, if not brought into the light of day, could lead to their ruin” (74). The “uptake” of Death and the Maiden testifies to its rhetorical force (Warner 87). In his foreword to the TRC Report, written in part to address the Commission’s detractors, Chairperson Desmond Tutu writes, “In Ariel Dorfmann’s [sic] play, Death and the Maiden, a woman ties up the man who has injured her. She is ready to kill him when he repeats his lie that he did not rape or torture her. It is only when he admits his violations that she lets him go. His admission restores her dignity and her identity. Her experience is confirmed as real and not illusory and her sense of self is affirmed” (1: 7). Here Tutu seeks to persuade critics of the TRC’s argument that truth constitutes a satisfying alternative to retributive justice. In so doing, he seriously misinterprets Paulina’s response. Roberto’s forced confession does not restore her dignity and identity. She appears as angry and vulnerable at the end of the play as she does at the beginning. While she is persuaded to release Roberto unharmed, Paulina’s desire for vengeance remains unquenched. In her final lines of the play, she asks, “What do we lose? What do we lose by killing one of them? What do we lose? What do we lose?” (66). For my purposes here, Tutu’s misreading of the play matters less than his use of it to legitimate the TRC’s approach to victims and perpetrators. His citation exemplifies the interplay of political and cultural processes to which From Apartheid to Democracy draws attention.
In the following pages, I demonstrate how rhetoricians can, and why they should, read diverse texts—legal, testimonial, fictional, and visual—as equal participants in political projects. Victims and amnesty applicants, as well as the artists who represent and respond to the TRC in their creative work, share a commitment to its project of imagining a new South Africa. By including these generically varied receptions of the TRC process, From Apartheid to Democracy offers what Jeffrey Walker calls a “sophistic history of ‘rhetoric’ [in that it] includes ‘poetry’ and ‘poetics’ as essential, central parts of ‘rhetoric’s domain” (ix). As Walker demonstrates, epideictic discourse, like the more practical civic oratory traditionally associated with rhetoric, also “calls its audience to acts of judgment and response” (viii).
I characterize TRC participants’ and respondents’ arguments about the past as public memory. This term foregrounds their (paradoxical) orientation toward the present, communalism, and dynamism. Memories tell as much about the present as about the past, if not more: “[they are] a perpetually actual phenomenon, a bond tying us to the eternal present” (Nora 8). Memories are born of individual perceptions but also of shared social processes. Uptake of the past, be it contentious or harmonious, unifying or divisive, constitutes those who remember as a contingent public. While communal remembrance is “a crucial aspect of our togetherness” (Phillips 4), it is also always open to “contest, revision, and rejection” (2). The “public” of public memory thus indexes the inherently communal nature as well as the ongoing contestation that characterize remembrance, while “memory” calls attention to the presentist orientation and personal stakes of any engagement with the past.
I conceive of public memory as a process rather than an object. Instead of seeking memories’ essential meaning, form, or beginning, I track their uptake and evolution across time and genre. Rhetorical hermeneutics, a form of cultural rhetoric studies “that takes as its topic specific historical acts of interpretation within their cultural contexts,” provides one way of doing so (Mailloux 56). Rhetorical hermeneutics examines interpreters’ relationship to a text as well as the relationships among interpreters. Indeed, “for rhetorical hermeneutics, these two problems are ultimately inseparable” (50). The metaphor of “conversation” captures the dialogism of public memory (Mailloux, Bruffee). When possible, I comment on the social locations and political orientations of TRC participants and respondents to illuminate the various sources of their arguments.
This book has been a long time in the making. Without Susan Jarratt’s mentoring, endless encouragement, and incisive comments, I wouldn’t have finished my PhD, let alone become a professor and published this monograph; I owe her my biggest debt of gratitude. With patience, humor, and tact, Steve Mailloux pushed me to be more theoretically sophisticated and precise; he also convinced me that everything is indeed rhetorical. I thank Inderpal Grewal for asking tough questions and building my confidence as a scholar. A special thank you also to Alexandra Sartor, a lively interlocutor, thoughtful reader, conference companion, and, not least, a steadfast friend. Many others at UC Irvine helped along the way, especially Jonathan Alexander, Amitabha Bagchi, Paul Dahlgren, Philomena Essed, David Theo Goldberg, Daniel Gross, Lynda Haas, Laura Knighten, Jane Newman, and Piper Walsh. My writing partners, Matthew Pearson and Alexandra Sartor, consistently provided thoughtful feedback.
For transformative conversations about matters intellectual, professional, and personal, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Marjorie Jolles and Shevaun Watson. You two provide different and wonderful models of what it means to be scholars, teachers, and administrators. You are also always one step ahead of me, making my path through academia (and life) that much easier.
Over the years, workshops and panels with John Ackerman, Jim Beitler, Robert Hariman, John Lucaites, Kendall Phillips, Mitchell Reyes, Susan Romano, Patrician Stevens, and Bradford Vivian helped me refine my thinking about the relationship between rhetoric and public memory. An internship with the International Center for Transitional Justice under the direction of Louis Bickford and conversations with Priscilla Hayner gave me a practitioner’s perspective on the field of transitional justice and South Africa’s TRC’s influence on its development. I am grateful to Jillian Edelstein, Carnita Ernest, Cecyl Esau, Terry February, George Hallett, Oupa Makhamelele, and Njabulo Ndebele, who generously allowed me to ask questions about their work and their vision for the new South Africa.
For doling out criticism and encouragement in equal measure, Jeffrey Montez de Oca and Stephany Spaulding, my friends and writing partners at UCCS , deserve special mention. I thank the entire English department, especially Traci Freeman, Ceil Malek, Michelle Neely, Kirsten Ortega, and Ken Pellow, for their support. I also wish to thank Christina Martinez, who has yet to deny a request to purchase materials for UCCS’s Kraemer Family Library. A grant from the Committee on Research and Creative Work and the office of LAS Dean Peter Braza provided additional material support.
Anonymous reviewers provided feedback that greatly improved this manuscript. I am grateful for their thoughtful and generous revision suggestions, which I have incorporated to the best of my abilities. I also thank Kendra Boileau and Cheryl Glenn for their support of this project and superb editorial guidance. I extend my gratitude to Laura Reed-Morrisson and to the rest of the staff at Penn State University Press whose work made this book possible.
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