The politics of truth and reconciliation in South Africa : legitimizing the post-apartheid state /
Legitimizing the post-apartheid state
Richard A. Wilson.
- Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- xxi, 271 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
- Cambridge studies in law and society .
- Cambridge studies in law and society. .
Includes bibliographical references (pages 246-262) and index.
Human rights and nation-building -- Technologies of truth : the TRC's truth-making machine -- The politics of truth and human rights -- Reconciliation through truth? -- Reconciliation in society : religious values and procedural pragmatism -- Vengeance, revenge and retribution -- Reconciliation with a vengeance -- Conclusions : human rights, reconciliation and retribution. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
"The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to deal with the human rights violations of apartheid during the years 1960-1994. However, as Wilson shows, the TRC's restorative justice approach to healing the nation did not always serve the needs of communities at a local level. Based on extended anthropological fieldwork, this book illustrates the impact of the TRC in urban African communities in the Johannesburg area. While a religious constituency largely embraced the Commission's religious-redemptive language of reconciliation, Wilson argues that the TRC had little effect on popular ideas of justice as retribution. This provocative study deepens our understanding of post-apartheid South Africa and the use of human rights discourse. It ends on a call for more cautious and realistic expectations about what human rights institutions can achieve in democratizing countries."--Jacket.