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Reconciliation, Justice, and (In)Tolerance Hijacked by Religious Apathy: Transforming Reconciliation 20 Years After the TRC in South Africa

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Abstract

In a recent publication edited by Danie du Toit on Jaap Durand (Du Toit 2014, p. 177), Durand raised what is probably the most fundamental question regarding the current role of the church, within the context of a post-apartheid and post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC): “Can the church demonstrate to the rest of South Africa what real unity, reconciliation and justice mean as stated in the Belhar Confession? And thus give hope to the future?” This question, in particular, exposes the Christian fraternity in terms of the core of its own confession regarding unity, reconciliation, and justice. The second part of the question alerts the church to the role it has to play in the public domain in terms of its eschatological task of being a bearer of hope, both now and in the future.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Church here refers to both the institutionalized church, as well as to the lived experience of every Christian engaging in the world they live in.

  2. 2.

    During the transition from apartheid to liberation, South Africa opted for a process to deal with its past and to contribute to uniting the country. In South Africa, this process was called the Truth and Reconciliation process. The TRC was officially established and maintained by Parliament in July 1995 with the task of finding the truth of what happened in South Africa between March 1, 1960 and December 5, 1993. Also see the TRC Report of South Africa, Vol. 1.

  3. 3.

    See the TRC Report of South Africa, 1998, Vol. 4; and Meiring, in Chronicle of the Truth Commission (1999, pp. 96–97).

  4. 4.

    See the TRC Report of South Africa, 1998, Vol. 4.

  5. 5.

    Minister Manuel was the speaker at the second annual lecture of the Institute for Healing of Memories. (Available from: http://www.healing-memories.org/news/lectures. Accessed April 22, 2015.)

  6. 6.

    See the Report of the TRC, 1998, Vol. 5, p. 316 ff.

  7. 7.

    One of the key tasks of the IJR is to track what (all) South Africans think the meaning of reconciliation is. This is done in different ways: for example, Idasa’s so-called “Afrobarometer” is now run by IJR in 40 African countries, measuring public attitudes on economic, political, and social matters on the continent; work in communities to see what they do, what works in communities with regards to reconciliation; and it does comparative analyses in Africa on national approaches to reconciliation and on public engagement with media (the dissemination of key considerations regarding reconciliation by the public media).

  8. 8.

    See the TRC Report of South Africa, 1998, Vol. 1, p. 110.

  9. 9.

    See Koopman (2015, p. 13), “Geen toekoms sonder geregtigheid nie.”

  10. 10.

    See Ganiel and Tarusarira (in Leiner et al. 2014, p. 73), as it is similar to the situation in Zimbabwe.

  11. 11.

    Xenophobic violence should be understood as violent attacks on foreign nationals living and working in South Africa by mostly black South Africans.

  12. 12.

    See the article on xenophobic violence in democratic South Africa in South African history online.

  13. 13.

    Restitution Foundation, a non-governmental organization in Cape Town, which was started by white, colored, and black businesspeople who felt that the churches did not take the challenges and recommendations of the TRC faith hearings seriously enough.

  14. 14.

    See Snyman (2014a) on the work done by the Restitution Foundation; and Snyman (2013) on the restitution toolkit; as well as the Doctoral dissertation by Hills (2014) on Restitution in the Reconciliation Process in Worcester.

  15. 15.

    Message delivered on Sunday May 6, 1990 in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, at an ecumenical gathering of mainly black Christian churches during a time of political negotiations by Jaap Durand.

  16. 16.

    See Hall (2010, p. 39) in this regard.

  17. 17.

    See Smit (2007, pp. 1–8) on the Notions of the Public—and Doing Theology? Tentative Theses for Discussion; and Koopman (2010, p. 134).

  18. 18.

    See M. Leiner and S. Fläming (Eds.) (2012, p. 11) as they plead for a trans-disciplinary approach to reconciliation.

  19. 19.

    See Van der Borght (Re-enactment report 2014, p. 193).

  20. 20.

    See the role of Archbishop Romero in the liberation of El Salvador (Tombs 2012, pp. 41–56).

  21. 21.

    The reenactment consultation of the TRC faith hearing took place 24 years after Durand addressed the ecumenical church gathering referred to in the introduction of this chapter.

  22. 22.

    Snyman (Symposium report 2014b, p. 5) explains the motivation leading up to engaging in the process of community-led restitution as follows: “One of the limitations in this work was that the ecumenical movement was in dire straits and in most of the country there seemed to be little energy towards ecumenical work in the last decade. Furthermore, many of the post-apartheid church leaders did not have the charisma of apartheid era church leaders such as Beyers Naudé, Desmond Tutu, Allan Boesak and Dennis Hurley. Therefore, the vehicle had to be refocused and although the mission stayed the same, the vehicle was now to be ordinary church members or not even church members, but a bottom-up, grass roots vehicle.”

  23. 23.

    Prof Nico Koopman is Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Stellenbosch University and Director of the Beyers Naudé Centre.

  24. 24.

    See the example of Archbishop Romero and the role he and the church played in El Salvador (Tombs, in Leiner and Fläming 2012, p. 55).

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  1. University of Stellenbosch, Stellenboch, South Africa

    Christo Thesnaar

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  1. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    R. Ruard Ganzevoort

  2. VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Srdjan Sremac

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Thesnaar, C. (2017). Reconciliation, Justice, and (In)Tolerance Hijacked by Religious Apathy: Transforming Reconciliation 20 Years After the TRC in South Africa. In: Ganzevoort, R., Sremac, S. (eds) Lived Religion and the Politics of (In)Tolerance. Palgrave Studies in Lived Religion and Societal Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43406-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43406-3_9

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