Table 1: Map of factors presented as decisive
in instituting/shaping the TRC
1: Nation-Building and Reconciliation
2: Justice and Morality
"The rainbow nation"
economic stability
social peace: safety and security, removing threat of civil strife
legitimation of apartheid redress policies: shows past harm done
creating a national identity, the "rainbow people of God" (Tutu)
shame and contrition
reparations
adjusting responsibility as less than criminal, e.g. extracting politically motivated crime from common crime (providing
context)
upholding a moral order through:
a) legitimating the existing justice system
b) showing respect for human rights
c) creating a deterrent for future potential violators
d) merging secular ethics with religious ideal of forgiveness
3: Pragmatic Necessities
4: Historical Record
CODESA and the constitution:
amnesty or no go
further extraction of "gross human rights violations" from apartheid in general because latter involves
too many; also, in that case there would be no clear pre-defined stopping point (images: witch-hunt, Spanish Inquisition)
knowing the "whole truth" about
a) the national or collective past
b) individual pasts
acknowledgment:
re-centering on victims and their experiences; destroying hegemony of official state discourse
Table 2: Main external metaphors or concepts
used in discourses about the trc