Transitional Justice

At UCT we heard from Zwelethu Jolobe about Transitional Justice. Transitional justice is about dealing with something in the past, something specific. In South Africa it was to deal with the excesses of the Apartheid government, and to promote a human rights environment. Its particularly important when “regular” forms of justice are not available for a variety of reasons. The TRC is applauded and criticized for many things, but one thing to keep in mind was that its purpose was not to facilitate the entire transition, but to deal with the human rights violations that had occurred.

Unfortunately, these human rights violations were limited to violence committed by the government and resistance organizations. It didn’t include things like the Bantu Education that disempowered generations of people, forced removals that completely disorganized society, and other structural violence, those policy makers were never brought in front of the commission to face the damage they had done.

Jolobe asked us whether reconciliation was really the role of the government. Or is the role of the government to provide for equity, health, water, education? And can that be considered a part of reconciliation since that is what is to be expected of any government. In 2004-2006 there was the highest amount of public protest in South Africa about the delivery of basic resources such as water and housing. And to keep things in perspective, the South African Government is working through bureaucracy and a change of power every 5 years because of the democracy. He also spoke about the many NGOs, CBOs, and other organizations had come up in order to promote reconciliation. Even during the TRC the lawyers were doing pro bono work since Mbeki didn’t support the TRC.

This idea was inspiring that the community could come together for the goal of reconciliation. However, I wonder how this can then translate to the US. There seem to be some key differences that may impact how it looks. First of all, the fact that the Apartheid government is so recent has kept the civic spirit high. Even still, people talk about how the younger generation in South Africa is less aware of the history, and surveys show they are more pessimistic towards issues of reconciliation. How does that then look in the US where the Civil Rights Movement was longer ago? Overall there seems to be less engagement, just one example being the number of people that actually show up to vote. Another key difference is the fact that the oppressed group is the majority in South Africa, and is the minority in the US. There is such a larger sense of community around identities, as well as around the South African identity in the US. So how would reconciliation adapt to these differences in the States?