The Ambiguities of Reconciliation and Responsibility in South Africa
| Author | Rosemary Nagy |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00504.x |
| Published date | 01 December 2004 |
| Date | 01 December 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
The Ambiguities of Reconciliation and
Responsibility in South Africa
Rosemary Nagy
Carleton University, Canada
This paper traces the ways in which the language of reconciliation promotes and detracts from
responsibility. What it means to be responsible and to take responsibility is explored through a
reading of J. M. Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace. Coetzee provokes a nuanced examination of the nature
of reconciliation and responsibility in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly how deep a moral
transformation is needed and of whom it should be expected. The tensions between pro forma
acknowledgement and deep moral transformation are examined with respect to the competing
narratives of reconciliation and responsibility that took place during the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and afterwards in South African civil society. The paper concludes with a warning
about the delicate balance between responsibility and vilification, reconciliation and denial.
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has undoubtedly
raised the international profile of ‘truth and reconciliation’ as a potential process
for dealing with grievous wrongdoing. Yet there has been little consensus in South
Africa about what must be done, and by whom, in order to achieve reconciliation
– whatever that might be (Hamber and van der Merwe, 1998; Dwyer, 1999). Does
reconciliation depend upon moral atonement, or is formal recognition of past
wrongdoing sufficient? How much should a nation look backward in order to move
forward? What kinds of obligations result from complicity and benefit from past
violence? Given the influence of the South African model for dealing with historic
injustice, it is important to reflect critically upon these questions.
However, there are no easy answers, and I do not propose to offer a definitive
response. Rather, my purpose is to trace the ways in which the language of re-
conciliation promotes and detracts from responsibility. In this paper, I will explore
the nature of reconciliation and responsibility in post-apartheid South Africa
through a reading of J. M. Coetzee’s (1999) Booker Prize-winning novel, Disgrace.
Coetzee provokes a nuanced examination of what it means to be responsible and
to take responsibility, particularly, how deep a moral transformation is needed and
of whom it should be expected. He relentlessly captures the ambiguities of assign-
ing and taking responsibility, and the limits of seeking moral transformation. I will
juxtapose these ambiguities with the competing narratives of reconciliation and
responsibility that took place during the TRC and afterwards in South African civil
society. Reflecting upon the tensions between pro forma acknowledgement and
deep moral transformation in both the novel and real life, I will conclude with a
warning about the delicate balance between responsibility and vilification, recon-
ciliation and denial.
© Political Studies Association, 2004.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
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R O S E M A RY N A G Y
The issue of ‘white’ or ‘beneficiary denial’ is of particular concern in this paper,
both in terms of the South African process and in terms of conceptual questions
about complicity, benefit and reconciliation that pertain more broadly (although I
cannot draw specific comparisons here). Accordingly, I will focus on state-
sponsored violence rather than liberation violence or so-called ‘black on black’
violence. With respect to beneficiaries, especially Afrikaners, the question of
‘choice’ is complicated, given the pervasive reach of apartheid ideology in religion
and education. Censorship and spatial segregation prevented whites (who did not
want to know) from having any real contact with what was going on in the town-
ships. Yet some whites did oppose apartheid. Moreover, the majority of South
Africans knew quite clearly that apartheid was a crime against humanity and that
torture and other gross abuses were being systematically conducted. But in the face
of domestic and international pressure, electoral support for the apartheid regime
actually grew (Theissen, 1996, section 3.2).
Although it is difficult to talk about contemporary and historic South Africa
without talking about race, race is a social construct whose significance, it is hoped,
will fade. Insofar as all whites materially benefited from apartheid, even those who
opposed it, I will generally refer to a singular community (noting here its ethnic,
linguistic, political, religious and generational diversity). I will treat the idea of
‘taking responsibility’ primarily in terms of acknowledgement. However, material
and political obligations (political will for reparation, civic engagement, volun-
teerism, restitution) and relational shifts (respect, civic ethos, anti-racism, integra-
tion) should accompany acknowledgement. Finally, the focus of this paper does
not mean that acknowledgement, national reconciliation and social transformation
are one-sided or dependent upon apartheid beneficiaries: these are tasks for all
South Africans.
Three Figures of Responsibility
Disgrace is the story of a white Cape Town professor, David Lurie. An admitted
womaniser, he has an affair with a student that turns sour, ending with a sexual
harassment charge, an internal hearing, public scandal and his resignation upon
refusing to apologise. He leaves Cape Town in disgrace to live with his somewhat
estranged daughter, Lucy. For a time, he settles into rural life, working at the local
animal clinic and re-establishing his relationship with Lucy. But the temporary
peace is shattered by a brutal attack at the farm by two black men and a boy. The
dogs are shot, David is locked in the bathroom and a bottle of spirits is poured over
his head and lit, and Lucy is raped in her bedroom. David is certain that Petrus,
Lucy’s neighbour whom she hires to look after the dogs, had foreknowledge of the
attack because of his absence on the fateful day. Yet she agrees to marry Petrus and
to share her land in exchange for his protection. David cannot accept this decision.
Nor can he accept her steadfast refusal to report the rape or to leave her farm. In
their disagreement, father and daughter have never been ‘so far and so bitterly
apart’ (p. 112).
As David and Lucy each cope with the attack, Coetzee intertwines themes of guilt,
repentance, victimhood, responsibility and redemption, which are set against the
backdrop of social transformation. Whereas David’s story shows the limits of
R E C O N C I L I AT I O N A N D R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y I N S O U T H A F R I C A
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seeking moral atonement for the past, Lucy’s represents the excesses of bearing
responsibility. And Petrus is the mirror image of ordinary white South Africans
under apartheid. But Coetzee, in presenting these three figures and their differing
conceptions of reconciliation, offers few answers and only uncertain solace. Rather,
he challenges us to wrestle with the moral, psychological and political com-
plexities that arise in different quests for accountability. He does so by doggedly
rooting out the basic conflict between pro forma and morally transformative inter-
pretations of the connection between reconciliation and responsibility. And just as
Coetzee provides little resolution of this basic conflict in the novel, similarly,
throughout the operation of the TRC and in South African civil society, there are
incompatible accounts of what sort of reckoning of the past is required for national
reconciliation.
As an example of the first, pro forma view, Hayner writes in her far-reaching study
of truth commissions that ‘very few South Africans will admit to ever having sup-
ported apartheid ... In this widespread, even if clearly dishonest, denial can be
found a measure of success in South Africa’s reconciliation’ (2000, p. 160). In her
view, reconciliation means there is a lack of bitterness in the public sphere; public
or civic relationships are based upon the present; and there is some consensus
about the events of the past (pp. 161–3). In contrast, Villa-Vicencio, also writing
about white denial of ever having supported apartheid, complains of ‘a newfound
willingness’ to appropriate a ‘cheap form of reconciliation’, and he draws parallels
between white South Africans and Jaspers’ criticism of ‘people turned from
Nazis into democrats five minutes after 1945’ (1997, p. 240). Reconciliation, for
Villa-Vicencio, is ultimately about ‘who we can become’ (Ndebele, quoted in
Villa-Vicencio, n.d., p. 18). Repentance, transformation and restitution take place
in a context of ‘grace or acceptance’ that comes from the moral generosity of
victims who want to build an inclusive society (pp. 4, 10).
I find Hayner’s claim unsettling, because the refusal to admit to having supported
apartheid may extend into a refusal to acknowledge the extent of past injustice,
subsequent obligations or continuing benefit. The denial of having supported
apartheid may be positive insofar as it indicates an unwillingness to be associated
with a system defined as a crime against humanity. But moral dishonesty can also
result in superficial, unsubstantiated reconciliation where the past threatens to
erupt as a source of division, and where resentment, guilt and an ethos of in-
difference remain. Over the years, alienation and denial have manifested in
complaints about ‘reverse racism’ and...
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