A debate with troubling
repercussions has recently emerged in sections of South Africa society. Its
centrepiece are the merits and demerits of reconciling its historically divided
people groups. To emphasise the implications of this debate, it is worth noting
that it is really about the endurance of our social order.
After all a choice against
reconciliation is to sow powerful seeds towards the ineluctable destruction of
our social covenant. Let no one be misled by the time it takes for the fruit of
such seeds to ripen.
One would be remiss to disregard those who have come to seriously contemplate such a path
because it comes from a place of genuine disappointment. Building a nation is
no easy task, more so one as wounded as South Africa.
A social contract that fails
to adequately address social justice considerations nevertheless stands on a
faulty foundation. Precisely as a unifying and sustainable social consensus requires a
choice for the difficult path of continuing to deal with what divides us the
most, the lingering remnants of our troubled history.
This difficult but necessary
path can only incrementally eat away at the enormous power the past continues
to wield on us, owing to its ubiquitous imprints in our country. Until we
finally triumph over it we are condemned to carry it like a corpse whose putrid
odour pervades much of our social, economic and political interactions.
Contrary to popular opinion,
it is precisely the cause of our future that is suffocated by our failure to
resolve the lingering issues of our past. Ignoring them is hardly an effective way
of handling them.
There are many reasons why
the past has become such a divisive topic in South Africa. Not least its
penchant for use as a weapon in dealing with a multiplicity of issues. Not all
to which it is relevant. Its emotive power, however, makes it an irresistible
trump-card that is often mischievously used.
For others the past regrettably
serves as a cheap explanation for failure. Even when poor application is
responsible. This goes hand in hand with the false idea that there exists an alternative
path to success other than knowledge, careful planning, astuteness, perseverance and good
old fashioned hard work.
These are among the many
reasons why South Africans, especially the historical beneficiaries of colonialism
and apartheid may sometimes squirm at discussions of the past.
Among the more sensitive, it
understandably evokes troubling memories of aspects of their heritage that
elicit uncomfortable feelings of shame. Ubuntu
obligates us to thread on these issues with due sensitivity as it serves no
useful purpose “rubbing it in”.
Nevertheless, we do the cause
of nation building no favours by failing to confront the ubiquitous imprints of
the past that continue to bedevil us. Particarly as these pose a greater threat
to the survival of our fragile social contract than the risk of stepping on a
few toes.
Sadly the impatient eagerness
to look forward has tended to morph into denialism among many, even when the
evidence is barely disputable. Even so, the joke is on us if we think what we
deny ceases to exist by virtue of our denial of it.
Persisting and increasingly
unabashed racist attitudes and an economy that bears irrefutable imprints of
the past, are constant reminders that the past is still a very real part of us.
Those who feel the jarring sting of its realities come to despise being
dismissed or lectured in a manner that suggests that the injustice of their present
experiences either does not matter or that their personal assessment of them
must be subordinated to those whose judgement is supposedly weightier.
A failure to face up to our
past and deal with its legacy head-on empowers it in countless pernicious ways.
Not least a penchant to drive us into our respective laagers where resentment
and myth deepen, inevitably manifesting in the political arena, where our
choices have enormous power to shape the kind of society we become.
This tendency could hardly
have been portrayed clearer than the last general elections. Leading up to
which, countless South Africans spared no occasion to express their displeasure
with how the country was being governed.
The contrasting story told by
the results nevertheless confirms the tragic truth: many South Africans would
sooner live with what they consider a corrupt, arrogant and incompetent
government than risk giving power to those whom they believe take little care
for the injustices which affect them so distressingly.
It must be understood that
the truth and reconciliation commission was a commendable start, and nothing
more. Because many naively or perhaps self-servingly saw its conclusion as a
costless catharsis to centuries of injustice, it evidently achieved the
logically and historically irreconcilable goal of assigning accountability for
apartheid solely on a few National Party leaders.
This view gives the indefensible
impression that an entire “democratic” society that was very functional and
civilised according to its own perverted logic, that endured for centuries,
cannot be justly required to pay some price in the ongoing process of
restitutive justice.
That society not only gave
birth and nurtured its political leaders, it also gave them the levers of power
and ensured their sustainable hold on them. These leaders were not pursuing
some obscure personal mission, they were acting according to a popular mandate
given to them through the polls and regularly judge by the court of public opinion.
This assessement was according to how well they served
its collective needs and interests. Naturally at enormous, possibly
irrevocable, cost to an entire demographic.
The consequence of the
subsequent amnesia has led to interventions such as black economic empowerment
and affirmative action, as poorly designed as they are, to be met with the kind
of moral outrage that is truly astounding in terms of the extent of wilful
ignorance it betrays.
Those who live with the
socio-economic wounds of apartheid, in turn, find this common response indicative
of a superficial commitment to the principle of justice and a callous failure
to appreciate the depth of the damage caused by the system that accounted for
much of the racially tinged socio-economic inequalities.
The failure to come to terms
with the historical realities that still explain a big part of the present
socio economic travails for many, has done as much harm to the beneficiaries of
apartheid as it has to its victims. While the latter continue to wallow
in the grossly disempowering epithet of victimhood and wilt in smouldering
anger, the former are condemned to walk about with the unforgiving weight of
shame which manifests as the common tendency to find refuge under the specious shade
of denialism.
Indeed, we live before the
looming shadow of the haunting spectre of the day that history instructs never
fails to arrive. The day when the unresolved legacy of societal grievances gives
birth to a skilful demagogue adept at manipulating the unfulfilled longing for
justice. Usually leading to ruin much greater than the cost of resolving the
issues.
This is no way to build an
enduringly thriving social order. After all, a society built on a foundation of
injustice is inherently unstable.
It is worth distinguishing
punitive from restitutive justice. The former seeks to punish the responsible
party for their misdeeds. Restitutive justice on the hand is a mutual recognition
of the harm done by the actions of the responsible party as well as the
agreement to restore the affected party.
Among the reasons Nelson
Mandela came to be mentioned among the great men of the 20th century
was his choice for constructive restitutive justice. It promised a propitious
platform to begin the work of building a sustainable society.
This is in stark contrast to
the path taken by the victorious Allied Powers against Germany at the
conclusion of WWI in 1919. The consequence of the punitive terms of the peace
of Versailles have become the reference case of how not to pursue international
justice.
We can nevertheless learn
much from the courage and the presence of mind so honourably displayed by
German society following the shameful chapter of Nazi rule, which came about as
a result of the failure to heed the lesson of addressing felt societal
injustice following the disastrous peace of Versailles.
That society has now become a
wonderful model of how to deal with societal baggage. It is streets ahead in
its journey of national healing precisely for the difficult but pragmatic choices
it took decades ago, among which was to confront its unpleasant past.
It is to the credit of the
character of German people that even after so many years, that society
continues to handle issues of its dark past with remarkable sensitivity and
humility. It is small wonder that various surveys reflect Germany as among the
most widely admired countries in the world.
It took Germany two punitive
world wars to learn its lessons. What will it take South Africa?
This delicate task of healing
the wounds of the past, must be done in the same spirit that a surgeon might.
Not out of vengeful or vindictive intent. Instead out of the sober realisation
that a wound left unattended, as the past 20 years have amply demonstrated,
soon becomes infected and with time, occasions the risk of spreading the
infection until the survival of the body can no longer be possible.
At best, the failure to deal
with our past condemns our posterity to more of the same simmering interracial
tensions we are becoming used to, which time seems to be accentuating rather
than ameliorating. A study of other societies with similarly troubled pasts,
instruct that the passage of time alone, rather than heal, hardens and
entrenches societal animosities that are not timeously and effectively attended
to.
What does this dealing with
the past entail? Huge pay-outs of money? Countless teary apologies for
apartheid? Hardly. Sure, there is a place for restitution and honourable
contrition but the biggest problems South Africans encounter in their
interaction with each other are present and not in the past.
I am convinced that the
greatest progress we can make in our quest for genuine reconciliation will be
through the simple practice of empathetically listening to each other. Listening
in order to understand our unique stories. This can develop awareness and
sensitivity to occurrences around us that we might otherwise remain oblivious
to.
History has consigned us
into a narrative many of us wish was differently scripted. But we are
who we are and this was shaped by historical forces that cannot be wished away.
Whatever we do now creates
its own realities. This journey will surely severely test us as the past twenty
years have shown and will continue to do so. The depth of our collective woundedness
offers no other alternative. But this is no time to lose heart.
We must continue to ratify
the exemplary choice taken by Mandela, who saw mutual hostility for what it is - an untenable dead-end. Let us follow him on the difficult but propitious path
of national reconciliation. After all, it's not as though we have the luxury of
choice.
