[DEBATE] : FYI 'Does the TRC Still Matter?' (Wits)

[Sean Jacobs]

Date: June 4, 2008
From: WISER
       najibha at wiser.wits.ac.za

'Does the TRC Still Matter?'

Living on in the Long Afterlife of Apartheid

The TRC was given the task of dealing with the past. But can it help  
us face
the future?  No longer post-apartheid but post-Polokwane, we appear to  
inhabit
a new political era.  Crime and HIV-AIDS still beset us, and so does  
poverty,
but xenophobia puts our very identity in question.  The country  
suffers but it
is no longer obvious who is responsible.  Viewed against this altered
backdrop, what relevance does the TRC's project still have of uniting  
and
reconciling South Africans by having us listen to testimony to apartheid
atrocities?  Can that national project inform relations with neighboring
countries and their citizens? What long-term effect has its welcoming of
testimony had on public discourse? Do the currents of violence,  
repression and
misunderstanding revealed by the TRC help us understand the present  
and guide
us into the future with greater insight? Will its special emphasis on
language, story-telling and translation outlast the fading memory of the
specific crimes it investigated? And what now of its advocacy of ubuntu,
reparation, and forgiveness? What is the role of scholars and public
intellectuals in continuing to make sense of the TRC and its influence?

Please join WISER for a Panel Discussion to mark the Launch of
Mark Sanders' provocative new book recently published by Wits  
University Press,

Ambiguities of Witnessing: Law and Literature in the Time of a
Truth Commission

Speakers:
Achille Mbembe, Sheila Meintjes, Deborah Posel and Michael Titlestad

Tuesday, 10th June 2008
7pm
WISER Seminar Room, 6th Floor Richard Ward Building
East Campus, Wits University
------------------------------------------------------
Sean Jacobs
tintinyana at gmail.com

“Only intellectuals love poverty. Poor people love luxury” (from a  
Brazilian samba).

http://theleoafricanus.com/