Abstract
This chapter analyzes the discourse surrounding the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (GTRC) Swearing In and Seating Ceremony—focusing on a speech delivered by Reverend Bongani Finca, a former commissioner on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission—to show how advocates of the GTRC reaccentuated the South African notion of ubuntu in order to build solidarity between Greensboro and South African stakeholders and thereby establish the GTRC’s authority. Through his speech, Finca endorsed the GTRC commissioners, entrusted the people of Greensboro with the truth commission model, and established the GTRC’s status in the community. As he did so, he also called community members to embrace ubuntu, both explicitly and implicitly. The chapter concludes by analyzing the front and back covers of the GTRC’s Final Report, noting how the commissioners drew upon the notion of ubuntu to position themselves and the covers’ viewers.
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Notes
- 1.
At various points throughout the chapter, I make connections between Finca’s (2004) keynote address and other rhetorical performances that occurred in Greensboro, including Desmond Tutu’s (2005) speech at Guilford College and Finca’s remarks following the Commission’s first public hearing (GTRC, 2005b). This chapter, then, provides insights into how individuals associated with past truth commissions and, more broadly, with the field of transitional justice helped to authorize the GTRC.
- 2.
The many meanings associated with the term are often said to come from the values that circulated within the structure of the African village, although this explanation is by no means universally accepted; historian Christoph Marx (2002), for example, called this explanation an “invented tradition” (p. 59). Ubuntu has also often been used to contrast Western and Africa views of personhood (Battle, 1997, p. 39). Kamwangamalu (2008), for example, wrote, “Interdependence is valued highly in Africa, much as it is in Asia. However, in the West, independence rather than interdependence is the norm. Consequently, these two values, independence and interdependence, tend to clash when those who hold them come into contact” (p. 116). Similarly, Augustine Shutte’s (2001) call to an ethic of ubuntu hinged on this distinction: “Both [African and European traditions] base their ethics on their understanding of humanity. For both the moral life is intrinsically connected to human flourishing and fulfillment. But they present us with different insights into human nature. The African insight is into our communal nature, persons depend on persons to be persons. The European insight is into the freedom of the individual” (p. 51). Marx noted (2002) that such generalizations about cultures are seldom based on evidence (pp. 59–60).
- 3.
The equivalent Sotho expression—“Motho ke motho ka batho ba bang,” which has been translated “I am, because we are”—has also contributed to the fact that ubuntu has often been associated with notions of interdependence and connectedness (More, 2004, p. 157).
- 4.
Ubuntu-informed business practices focus on mentoring as opposed to managing, teamwork as opposed to competition and individualism, diversity as opposed to uniformity, and affirmative action as opposed to discrimination (Kamwangamalu, 2008, p. 118).
- 5.
Given such developments, and many others like them, it is little wonder that More (2004) cited the recent emphasis on ubuntu as one of the “three most important developments in African society” (p. 156).
- 6.
Bongani Finca was also one of the signers of The Kairos Document—a statement by South African theologians and clergy that called for an end to apartheid in South Africa (Kairos theologians, 1986, p. 54).
- 7.
Although Tutu had contact with both the GTCRP and the GTRC, neither of his visits to Greensboro were arranged by the ICTJ.
- 8.
Desmond Tutu’s daughter Naomi Tutu also came to Greensboro. Speaking at a news conference at North Carolina A&T University on the 25th anniversary of the Greensboro massacre, she said, “If we say we are those who want to pass on a better world to the next generation, we have to come up with a better way, and we know the only way for healing is for us to listen to one another’s stories and to incorporate those stories into a bigger whole” (McLaughlin, 2004, p. B1).
- 9.
Finca served on a public discussion panel with Gonzalez, gave the keynote at the GTRC’s Swearing In and Seating Ceremony, spoke at New Light Baptist Church on the night before the GTRC’s first public hearing, and offered concluding remarks at the first public hearing (Steadman, 2003, p. B4; Swensen, 2005, p. B1).
- 10.
Finca’s (2004) keynote address is central to my argument in this chapter, and the entirety of the address is reprinted with permission in the Appendix.
- 11.
Finca (2004) was not the first person to reference ubuntu in Greensboro. Writer Mark Mathabane—who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa—delivered a lecture in the Greensboro area on September of 1999, entitled, “Discovering the Importance of Ubuntu—Our Common Humanity” (“Author,” 1999, p. 6). Later, in 2001, Greensboro’s News & Record published a story on Mathabane’s writings (Caranna, 2001, p. D1). The piece touched on Mathabane’s work of fiction Ubuntu, and it described the concept as follows: “Ubuntu is a Zulu word that means ‘soul’ or the ‘quality of being human.’ ‘You cannot be a human being just by yourself,’ Mathabane says to put the word in context. ‘How you treat other people is how you become a human being’” (Caranna, 2001, p. D1).
- 12.
The projecting clause, as linguist Christie (2002) noted, “takes something said or thought before and reinstates it” (p. 25).
- 13.
Finca’s (2004) remarks at the Swearing In and Seating Ceremony were not his only public endorsements of the Commission. One year after Finca’s first visit to Greensboro for the Swearing In and Seating Ceremony, he returned, this time to attend the first of three public hearings that the Commission held in the summer and early fall of 2005. Each public hearing was a 2-day event, in which the seven commissioners called experts and eyewitnesses to offer testimony related to the 1979 killings (GTRC, 2005b). Much like at the South African public hearings, the commissioners sat behind a long table in the front of an auditorium, while those offering testimony sat at a separate table nearby. At the beginning and end of each day of the hearings, the GTRC observed eighty-eight seconds of silence, the same length of time that the violence lasted on November 3, 1979. To mark this time of silence, Reverend Mark Sills—one of the seven GTRC commissioners—rang chimes.
At the end of the first public hearing, after all of the testimonies had been given, Finca took a seat at the witness table. From start to finish, Finca’s remarks that evening functioned as an endorsement of the Commission. He began, “I feel very uncomfortable speaking from here [the witness table]. I’m used to speaking from there [the commissioners’ table]. I hope, however, I’m not going to be asked any difficult questions from yourselves” (GTRC, 2005b). Finca’s humor here, which prompted knowing chuckles from the audience, played upon the genre conventions of the public hearing; the fact that he delivered his remarks to the commissioners from the witness table was incongruous with his identity as a former commissioner of the SATRC. By highlighting this incongruity, Finca aligned himself, at least in the eyes of the audience, with those sitting behind the commissioner table. This move was reinforced by a subsequent remark: “Commissioners,” Finca said, “have a certain family relation, whether they are here or anywhere else in the world, and there is a sense where, if there is going to be a hearing, we sense discomfort or anxiety about how it’s going to turn out.” Having thus aligned himself with the commissioners, Finca continued:
[A]s you began your hearings, in some village back home in South Africa, there was an activity of bells which were ringing to mark our solidarity with you at two o’clock your time, at nine o’clock our time. Those bells were meant to indicate that we were beginning this process in solidarity with yourselves. But having participated in these hearings as an observer yesterday and today, I have a feeling that it is not sufficient that we [South Africans] should ring bells when [you] start your hearings. I think we have to do more than that. We should light a candle and maintain a vigil, because the task that you face requires that we continue to be in solidarity with you.
The theme of Finca’s remarks on this occasion was solidarity—a term that Finca used no less than three times in this passage alone. But he did not simply mention solidarity; he also helped constitute it between the GTRC and the people of South Africa.
He did so by calling attention to the shared practice of tintinnabulation between the Greensboro commissioners and South Africans. Then, as if to construct some permanence for this solidarity, Finca sugg‑ested that the one-time practice of bell ringing was insufficient. As indicated by the verbs that Finca employed in the last sentence (e.g., “maintain,” “continue”), he suggested that a symbolic gesture indicating continuity and duration was needed: a candlelit vigil. Moreover, he framed the relationship between South Africans and the Greensboro commissioners as increasingly intimate. At the beginning of the passage, Finca had used passive constructions to describe South African action (e.g., “there was an activity of bells which were ringing”; “Those bells were meant to indicate…”). By the end of the passage, however, he had shifted to the active voice and used the modal verb “should” to express obligation. The trajectory of this passage culminated in the following pledge to the Greensboro commissioners: “I just wish to pledge to you, on behalf of the fellow commissioners in South Africa and indeed in other parts of the world, our solidarity, our support, and our prayers.”
Like Finca’s address at the Swearing In and Seating Ceremony, the rhetorical situation at this event was complex. While Finca ostensibly directed his remarks to the Greensboro commissioners, an audience made up of Greensboro citizens was present to witness the comments. What they witnessed might accurately be described as a public pledge of allegiance—that is, an endorsement.
- 14.
South Africans involved in the TRC process would have likely recognized Finca’s (2004) reference from the interim Constitution, which has probably been quoted more often than any other line from the document. Whether or not the people of Greensboro knew the line, the association of the TRC model with a constitution probably rendered it more legitimate.
- 15.
It is worthwhile to note that, throughout the rest of the Swearing In and Seating Ceremony, other subject positions were constructed that were incongruous with ubuntu. Take, as just one example, US Congressperson Melvin Watt’s comments at the event. While Watt mentioned the SATRC in conjunction with his role at the Faith and Politics Institute, he framed the citizen-led effort in Greensboro as an outgrowth not of the South African political transition, the interim Constitution, or ubuntu but of the United States political transition, the Declaration of Independence, and civil rights. Watt’s remarks, like Finca’s, helped to establish authority for the Commission; however, unlike Finca’s remarks, they did so by “attaching” it to a series of “ongoing efforts initiated by citizens to secure and maintain the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (GTCRP, 2004). The subject position of ubuntu (as Finca described it) was a different thing than this subject position, which was characterized by equality and inalienable rights. Watt privileged individual personhood and self-determination, while Finca emphasized community fulfillment or wholeness. Furthermore, Finca did not emphasize equality among persons; rather, he affirmed the differences and complementariness of people. My point in bringing these different emphases into relief is not to highlight a fundamental or essential difference between South African culture and Western culture; rather, it is simply to highlight the fact that, in the context of the Commission’s Swearing In and Seating Ceremony, there were subject positions constructed that challenged the subject position constructed by Finca.
- 16.
The rhetoric of identification is, Charland (1987) said, “not restricted to one hailing, but [is] usually a part of a rhetoric of socialization” (p. 138). Rhetorician Michael Leff also commented on this point. In his piece “Textual Criticism: The Legacy of G. P. Mohrmann,” Leff (2000) emphasized the importance of acknowledging a text’s temporality (pp. 553–554). The temporality of texts—the fact that they unfold in time—offers possibilities for rhetors to shape or fashion subject positions within a given text.
- 17.
In Chap. 5 of this project, I show that the Commission’s opponents called the Commission’s authority into question by accusing it of bias toward the group that established it, the GTCRP. Such accusations of bias attacked the legitimacy of the Commission’s founding moment: they essentially called the GTCRP’s declaration of the Commission’s independence into question.
- 18.
In Chap. 5 of this project, I demonstrate how the commissioners themselves attempted to reinforce the association between the SATRC and the GTRC, while most of their opponents tried to downplay such connections.
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Beitler, J.E. (2013). “A Person is a Person Through Other Persons”: Reaccentuating Ubuntu in Greensboro. In: Remaking Transitional Justice in the United States. Springer Series in Transitional Justice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5295-9_3
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