Program Particulars
*Times denoted refer to web version of audio
(01:35–02:33) Music: "The Multiples of One" from Awakening, performed by Joseph Curiale
(02:20) Definition of Apartheid
Translated from the Afrikaans meaning apartness, apartheid was the ideology supported by the National Party government and was introduced in South Africa in the early 1940s and implemented in 1948. In English, it has come to mean the legally sanctioned system of ethnic segregation existing in South Africa between 1948 and 1990.
The purpose of apartheid was the separation of the races: whites from nonwhites, nonwhites from each other, and, among the Africans (called Bantu in South Africa), one group from another. In addition to the Africans, who constitute about 75 percent of the total population, people regarded as nonwhites include those known in South Africa as "Coloureds"—people of mixed black, Malayan, and white descent—and Asian—mainly of Indian ancestry.
Initial emphasis was on restoring the separation of races within the urban areas. A large segment of the Asian and "Coloured" populations was forced to relocate out of so-called white areas. African townships that had been overtaken by (white) urban sprawl were demolished and their occupants removed to new townships well beyond city limits. Between the passage of the Group Areas Acts of 1950 and 1986, about 1.5 million Africans were forcibly removed from cities to rural reservations.
(02:37–03:53) Music: "Crying for Freedom in South Africa" from Selections 1976-88, performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock
(03:03) Reference to African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) has been South Africa's governing party since the establishment of majority rule in May 1994. It was founded to defend the rights of the black majority in 1912. It has been the only party to rule South Africa since 1994.
(04:02) Audio Clip of Mandela's Inauguration
Nelson Mandela was the first black president of South Africa and a legendary figure of the African National Congress. From 1964 to 1990, Mandela was imprisoned for opposing South Africa's white minority government and its policy of apartheid, becoming a symbol of resistance to racism. In 1993, Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, the president who released him, shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Mandela was elected the country's president in 1994. He served until 1999, when he was succeeded by his deputy Thabo Mbeki.
The following transcript was excerpted from Nelson Mandela's inauguration ceremony that took place on May 10, 1994:
I, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, do hereby swear to be faithful to the Republic of South Africa, and do, solemnly, and sincerely promise, at all times, to promote that which will advance and to oppose all that may harm the republic, so help me God.
Read and listen to Mandela's momentous speech that was given the preceding day in Cape Town, South Africa.
(05:28–07:03) Music: "Kouami Ba" from From Senegal to Setesdal, performed by Kirsten Braten-Berg
(05:40) Audio Clip of Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a prelate of the Anglican Church and a leader in the anti-apartheid struggle, became a vocal advocate of international economic sanctions against South Africa. He won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.
The following transcript was excerpted from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's speech at the National Press Club on October 6, 1999:
We, we had this remarkable process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. When people who had suffered grievously, whom you could have said had a divine right to being angry and filled with a lust for revenge, came and told their stories, and so frequently you wanted to take off your shoes because you said, "I'm standing on holy ground."
Listen to Tutu's entire speech, including the question-and-answer session moderated by Larry Lipman.
(11:44) Idea of Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a traditional African concept which focuses on people's allegiances and relations with each other. In Desmond Tutu's book No Future Without Forgiveness, he describes the concept of ubuntu:
Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, "Yu, u nobuntu"; "Hey, so-and-so has ubuntu." Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bundle of life. We say, "A person is a person through other persons." It is not, "I think therefore I am." It says rather: "I am human because I belong. I participate, I share." A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.
(12:10–12:56) Music: "Bitilo" from From Senegal to Setesdal, performed by Kirsten Braten-Berg
(15:10) Story of Brian Mitchell
Brian Mitchell was a South African Police officer who organized the Trust Feed Massacre that occurred in December 1988. Eleven people were killed in the attack, and, in 1992, Mitchell was convicted and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment a year later, and he was subsequently granted amnesty.
Letlapa Mphahlele was the operations director for the militant wing of the Pan-African Congress (PAC), the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). In 1993, he ordered an unprovoked attack on the Heidelberg Tavern in Cape Town in which four people were killed, including the daughter of Ginn Fourie. And, months prior to that, he had orchestrated the murder of 11 worshippers at St. James Church in Cape Town.
(18:35) Book by Gobodo-Madikizela
Gobodo-Madikizela's study of Eugene de Kock is A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness. De Kock was the commanding officer of a state-sanctioned unit, Vlakplaas, that was committed to undermining anti-apartheid movements inside and outside South Africa by any means necessary.
For leading this hit squad in a calculating and unrelenting manner, he was onerously referred to as "Prime Evil." He is currently serving a 212-year sentence for 89 counts of murder and crimes against humanity.
(16:54–17:22) Music: "Atolago" from From Senegal to Setesdal, performed by Kirsten Braten-Berg
(17:44–18:36) Music: "Atolago" from From Senegal to Setesdal, performed by Kirsten Braten-Berg
(20:06) Story of De Kock and Widows
The following passage from Gobodo-Madikizela's book, A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness, recounts the author's thoughts about the story of de Kock meeting the widows of the men he killed after he first confessed to the Motherwell bombings:
This was de Kock's first appearance before the TRC. As he concluded his testimony, he made an appeal to meet with the widows of the victims of the Motherwell bombing. He wanted to apologize to them but wished to do so privately, he said. I was intrigued by de Kock's request. The boldness of the idea both amazed me and made me curious. Would the widows be willing to see de Kock? What would he say? "I'm sorry I killed your husbands"?
The widows' lawyer agreed to the meeting. Present were two of the widows, Pearl Faku and Doreen Mgoduka, their lawyer, de Kock, and his lawyer, Schalk Hugo.
A few days later I met with Mrs. Mgoduka and Mrs. Faku during a weekend briefing. "I was profoundly touched by him," Mrs. Faku said of her encounter with de Kock. Both women felt that de Kock had communicated to them something he felt deeply and had acknowledged their pain. "I couldn't control my tears. I could hear him, but I was overwhelmed by emotion, and I was just nodding, as a way of saying yes, I forgive you. I hope that when he sees our tears, he knows that they are not only tears for our husbands, but tears for him as well…. I would like to hold him by the hand, and show him that there is a future, and that he can still change."
The image of the widow reaching out to her husband's murderer struck me as an extraordinary expression — and act — of empathy, to shed tears not only for her loss but also, it seemed, for the loss of de Kock's moral humanity. Was de Kock deserving of the forgiveness shown him? Was he too evil — "Prime Evil" — to be worthy of forgiveness Mrs. Faku and Mrs. Mgoduka had offered him? Was evil intrinsic to de Kock, and forgiveness therefore wasted on him?
And, later on in the book, during Gobodo-Madikizela's first meeting with de Kock in Pretoria Central Prison, she asks de Kock about the meeting with the widows:
I asked de Kock to talk about the meeting with Pearl Faku and Doreen Mgoduka. His face immediately fell, and he became visibly distressed. I could hear the clatter of his leg chains as he shuffled his feet. Sitting directly across from me in the small prison consulting room, his heavy glasses on the table that separated us, he started to speak. There were tears in his eyes. In a breaking voice he said: "I wish I could do much more than [say] I'm sorry. I wish there was a way of bringing their bodies back alive. I wish I could say, 'Here are your husbands,'" he said, stretching out his arms as if bearing an invisible body, his hands trembling, his mouth quivering, "but unfortunately… I have to live with it."
Relating to him in the only way one does in such human circumstances, I touched his shaking hand, surprising myself. But it was clenched, cold, and rigid, as if he were holding back, as if he were holding on to some withering but still vital form of his old self. This made me recoil for a moment and to recast my spontaneous act of reaching out as something incompatible with the circumstances of an encounter with a person who not too long ago had used these same hands, this same voice, to authorize and initiate unspeakable acts of malice against people very much like myself.
An yet, immersed as I was in the concrete circumstances of a prison interview room, sitting across from a trembling man in chains, something else seemed to assure me that there was nothing especially incongruous in his display of emotional vulnerability and my response. I tried as best I could to carry on normally, to maintain my professional composure. And yet I felt guilty for having expressed even momentary sympathy and wondered if my heart had actually crossed the moral line from compassion, which allows one to maintain a measure of distance, to actually identifying with de Kock.
(22:05–24:05) Music: "Gijim Beke" from South African Legends, performed by Johnny Clegg & Juluka
(29:36–30:20) Music: "Jegerleik" from From Senegal to Setesdal, performed by Kirsten Braten-Berg
(30:24) The Kairos Document
In 1985, a group of theologians convened in the heart of Soweto to produce a document that would call the church into action over the violence and injustice occurring in apartheid South Africa. The Kairos Document was signed by 156 people, including that of Villa-Vicencio, from over 20 denominations.
The document identified three choices available to the church. There was state theology, upon which was based the theological justification of apartheid. A second choice was church theology, which was judged to be the dominant approach of South Africa's church leaders at the time. They maintained that although church leaders were critical of apartheid, they wanted to reconcile the opposing forces in a passive, peaceful manner through compromise.
The third option was prophetic theology, or Kairos theology. The word comes from New Testament Greek and is a concept that evokes a moment of grace and opportunity in which God issues a challenge to decisive action. Kairos does not imply chronological time so much as a moment of truth, a period when the mundane reaches to the sacred nature of man. This theology holds that there could be no compromise or reconciliation with evil; apartheid was evil.
The Kairos theology determined that the church must provide "a response that does not give the impression of sitting on the fence but is clearly and unambiguously taking a stand." The document also states that the Kairos is "a dangerous time because, if this opportunity is missed, and allowed to pass by, the loss for the Church, for the Gospel and for all the people of South Africa will be immeasurable."
(35:04) Reference to Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892?1971) was an American theologian who argued that Christianity is obligated to confront ethical, social, and moral problems. A political activist, he wrote prolifically and penned well-known works such as Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), Christianity and Power Politics (1940), Faith and History (1949), and many others.
Citing Herbert Butterfield and G.K. Chesterton, Niebuhr often observed that the doctrine of original sin is the one empirically verifiable article of Christian faith, and if one wants to know and understand sin and its effects, he or she need only to read the newspaper. In The Nature and Destiny of Man, Niebuhr calls attention to sin and other recognizable forces at work in the world through social turmoil and change.
(37:35–38:08) Music: "Thula Mtwana" from African Lullaby, performed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo
(40:20–40:55) Music: "Atolago" from From Senegal to Setesdal, performed by Kirsten Braten-Berg
(41:52) Crime and Violence in South Africa
Read a CNN special report from 1999 detailing the issues of murder and anger that South Africa continues to deal with.
(44:56–45:27) Music: "Road Rally" from Naa-Niami: Traditional Music from Ghana, performed by Sowah Mensah
(45:37) History of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
Over 20 Truth and Reconciliation Commissions have been formed to address injustices and human rights abuses perpetrated by particular groups involved in conflicts within a country. A working definition of a truth commission: It's a temporary body that's created by an official authority (often by a president or a parliament) to investigate a pattern of gross human rights violations committed over a period of time in the past. A tangible outcome often results in the issuance of a public report, which includes
victims' data and recommendations for justice and reconciliation.
Villa-Vicencio advises parties in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Peru on forming Truth
and Reconciliation Commissions of their own. The Truth Commissions Digital Collection, sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace, contains decrees establishing truth commissions and similar bodies of inquiry worldwide, and the reports issued by such groups.
(47:32–49:44) Music: "Kouami Ba" from From Senegal to Setesdal, performed by Kirsten Braten-Berg
(48:10) Negotiations Between Mandela and de Klerk
In 1993, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk were named co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa."
(49:53) Audio Clip of Archbishop Desmond Tutu
The following transcript was excerpted from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's speech at the National Press Club on October 6, 1999:
The way those who said, "Oh, well, just wait. Once a black-led government is in place, as sure as anything, what will you see? An orgy of retribution and vengeance when these black people are going to take it out on all of these whites who, for so long, enjoyed some of the most incredible privileges at their expense." Ha! Hah! That didn't happen, either. For, instead of this, the world again was a mess. The transition has been wonderfully smooth. The greatest achievement has been the remarkable stability of South Africa. You have to say, "What's happened there?"
Listen to Tutu's entire speech, including the question-and-answer session moderated by Larry Lipman.
(50:50–52:19) Music: "Abantwana Basethempeleni" from South African Legends, performed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo |
Charles Villa-Vicencio
