Opportunities for Repairing South Africa 20 years after the TRC

An Incomplete Journey towards Repairing South Africa

Marjorie Jobson

Class of 1975

A Beginning: A Campaign to End the Death Penalty in South Africa

Sikhumbuto Memorial to the‘Hanged’ at Freedom Park

The Isivivane

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission: 1996 – 1998

An Incomplete Outcome:Unfinished Business

The failure of justice & the transgenerational transmission of trauma

Reconstructing Societies after Trauma & the Role of Victim Agency

Build public understanding of the causes & consequences of political violence

Build a culture of accountability in place of denial & impunity

Restore human dignity through redress measures

Engaging our histories to developa historical consciousness

Former Home of Chief Lobengula in Fingo Township, Grahamstown

A Khulumani Poster Exhibition subtitled “From the power of black to the power of bling”

The capacity of South Africans to ignore tragedies unless they are directly affected

Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Youth from the comic collective voice their understandings of the reasons for our education failures

Creating Platforms for Participation:The Fingo Festival

Khulumani supports the initiation of a world class festival in Fingo township during the annual National Arts Festivals

Towards Accountability

• A struggle for accountability:

• A new judicial inquest for

Dr Neil Aggett

Being advanced by members of the Neil Aggett Support Group with the coordination of Khulumani Support Group

KSG Database Report 2006

Building an Archive

The Khulumani Apartheid Archive

Mobile survey training 2009

Teaching Data Collection Skills

Analysing Data

Working with story & memory

Remembering the ‘Green Blanket’

Supporting Marikana Widows to Claim their Voices

Connecting with Labour-Sending Areas

Developing collective contributions to community

Facilitating the development of civic competence skills

towards deepening participatory democracy in South Africa.

Promoting Citizen Agency:Supporting Citizen-led Action for Achieving

Socio-Economic Rights

“The struggle today is against poverty” & exclusionThe challenge of supporting people to build sustainable livelihoods through the construction of local living enterprises, defined as “a community of people who implement collaborative and human-scale ways of making a living.”

Reckoning with our experience of the TRC

• The past 20 years have been a 20-year transition that has benefitted beneficiaries of apartheid (white people) and a small layer of the black elite.

• We have not achieved the transformation of our society.

• The major challenges for us remain growing poverty and inequality, a still flagging process of land redistribution, a lack of a genuine social reconciliation with meaningful coexistence and a durable peace.

Raising the Bar: Hope and Renewal in South Africa: Songezo Zibi, Editor, Business Day

• The call for a movement to repair South Africa

• South Africa is a broken society. What will it take to give it a purpose & strength to face an initially difficult future, but one which can have so much reward for future generations.

• The hope is for a renewal characterised by just access to opportunities for all, the equitable distribution of resources & the freedom to succeed in all areas of life.

Help Repair South Africa: #RepairSA

• The only nationwide membership group advocating for justice and redress for survivors and victims of apartheid-era gross human rights violations, as well as their families.

• We also stand up for people who suffer post-apartheid

human rights violations.

• Before we won our democracy, we were part of a struggle to achieve a just society.

• Through that struggle we won our Constitutional Democracy.

• But the struggle for liberation for all who live in South Africa is not yet complete.

When Justice Fails

• Growing citizen disillusionment with failures to secure aspirations of dignity & equality through restitution & redistribution measures.

• Intensification of social problems of poverty, unemployment & inequality (PUI) –48% of population live in households with income less than R500.00 (US$50) per month.

• Failure of transformation – one immoral & inhumane system replaces another –political inefficiency & corruption & an excessively powerful, self-serving economic system orientated to the global economy.

• THE CONSEQUENCES: Failure to address collective trauma through justice remedies usually results in a return to collective violence

Reflections from a Poet

there will be a better time

when time has run out for liars

for those who take and take and take from others,

take forever!

and keep taking for themselves alone

time has run out when we say no!

no more –

No is not a word but an act, remember that - !

Mongane Wally Serote

Conclusion

• There is no force stronger than the collective will of the people to be free

• Citizen-driven, self-determined nationhood with the consent of the governed is important to achieve. This starts in the minds of the people.

• This is a continuing struggle for social justice, full equality, a fair economy, and stable and equitable statehood.

• This is the struggle of Khulumani Support Group