Settler Colonialism and the South African TRC: Ambivalent Denial and Democratisation Without Decolonisation
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/09646639211022786 |
| Author | Augustine S.J. Park |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Settler Colonialism and
the South African TRC:
Ambivalent Denial and
Democratisation
Without Decolonisation
Augustine S.J. Park
Carleton University, Canada
Abstract
In the quarter-century since it began its work, the South African TRC has been endlessly
debated. At the same time, a field of study emerged centred on settler colonialism, and
settler colonial analyses have become established in transitional justice. South Africa’s
TRC, however, hasescaped examination through the lens of settler colonialism. Typically,
settler colonialism in South Africa is treated as an historical phase; however, recent
scholarshipemphasises SouthAfrica’s colonial present.Following these insights, this article:
(1) establishes the relevance of a settlercolonial lens for interpreting theSouth African TRC
by demonstrating the settlercolonialism of apartheid;(2) provides an empiricalexamination
of the TRC’s Report.TheReportacknowledges settlercolonialism while advancinga series of
denials, producing ‘ambivalent denial’; (3) explores the implications of ambivalent denial.
Specifically, ambivalent denial contributes to democratisation without decolonisation by
enabling settler denial and failing to address settler colonial structures.
Keywords
Settler colonialism, South Africa, transitional justice, TRC, truth commissions
Introduction
The year 2021 marks 25 years since the South African Truth and Reconciliation Com-
mission (TRC) began its work. Over the course of this quarter-century, the TRC has been
Corresponding author:
Augustine S.J. Park, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6.
Email: Augustine.Park@carleton.ca
Social & Legal Studies
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DOI: 10.1177/09646639211022786
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2022, Vol. 31(2) 216–237
celebrated as a template to be emulated the world over (Gibson, 2004; Moon, 2004;
Shaw, 2007) but has also been subject to significant criticism. Indeed, the South African
TRC is the ‘most revered and reviled institution of this kind’ (Rose, 2015: 61). In the last,
approximately, 15 years, a field of study has emerged that centres on settler colonialism
(Veracini, 2010: 9) while analyses of settler colonialism have become firmly established
in transitional justice scholarship, specifically in relation to mechanisms in Australia and
Canada responding to the mistreatment of indigenous children by the settler state (e.g.,
Balint et al., 2014; Edmonds, 2016; Park, 2020; Rigney, 2017). In sharp contrast, transi-
tional justice in South Africa has escaped examination through the lens of settler colo-
nialism. In certain respects, this is unsurprising since the dominant framework for talking
about South Africa has been apartheid rather than – and divorced from – settler coloni-
alism. While discussing settler colonialism in relation to South Africa is ‘hardly original
or controversial’, settler colonialism is normally ‘relegated to the past’ as an historical
stage (Veracini and Verbuyst, 2020: 261). Reddy troubles this tendency, asking: ‘Why is
the concept of settler colonialism excluded in studies of post-1994 South African politics
and Apartheid, yet the legacies of that long experience of systematic racism are so easily
visible?’ (2015: 52). Recent literature engages apartheid as itself settler colonial (Free,
2018) and theorises South Africa in the ‘colonial present’ (Kepe et al., 2011; Veracini
and Verbuyst, 2020). Building on these insights, this article has three objectives:
The first objective is to establish the need for applying the lens of settler colonialism
to the South Africa TRC. To this end, I combine a brief historical overview of settler
colonialism in South Africa and explore key theorisations of settler colonialism. In brief,
settler colonialism describes ‘circumstances where colonisers “come to stay”’ (Veracini,
2013: 313). Building a new polity on expropriated land, settler colonialism operates
through a ‘logic of elimination’ founded on both dispossession (‘to alienate and destroy
the native’) and transfer (‘to replace the native’) (Veracini and Verbuyst, 2020: 261).
Moreover, settler colonialism in South Africa manifests as racial capitalism that com-
bines land dispossession with labour exploitation (Clarno, 2017). I will end this section
by arguing that apartheid must be understood as an expression of settler colonialism; and,
since the TRC was addressed to apartheid, analyses of the TRC must also grapple with
settler colonialism. The second objective of this article is to provide an empirical exam-
ination of the TRC’s final Report through a textual analysis in order to assess the
character of the TRC’s treatment of settler colonialism. My analysis shows that settler
colonialism is largely absent in the Report and what limited discussion there is produces
what I will call ‘ambivalent denial’. Specifically, while the Report acknowledges settler
colonialism through limited references to the anti-colonialism of liberation groups, the
TRC undermines this recognition through a series of denials, namely: denial through the
historicisation of settler colonialism, denying the existence of settlers, and denial through
constructing distinctions between apartheid and colonialism. The third objective of this
article is to explore the implications of ambivalent denial. In particular, I argue that
ambivalent denial of settler colonialism in the TRC’s new national narrative contributes
to democratisation without decolonisation by enabling continued settler denial and fail-
ing to address the structures of settler colonialism. Finally, this article concludes with
reflections on directions for further inquiry. This article, indeed, can be read as an
invitation to revisit the TRC using a lens of settler colonialism to explore new questions.
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