Forgiveness and South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commission: Making Public Spaces Intimate
Grant Program Roundtable
A South African sits near a sign marking a segregated beach in South Africa, 1982. (Courtesy
UN)
Date
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
9:30–11:00 AM
Location
U.S. Institute of Peace
1200 17th St., NW
Washington, D.C.
Directions
As South Africa moves along the difficult road toward national reconciliation it continues a process, begun by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), to confront the personal and societal trauma visited upon the country by its Apartheid past. To explore efforts to advance national reconciliation in South Africa, the Institute's Grant Program sponsored a special roundtable discussion on September 21, 2004 with award winning author and Institute grantee Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela.
Institute grantee Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela addresses the audience.
An associate professor of psychology at the University of Cape Town and a former member of the Human Rights Violations Committee of South Africa's TRC, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela discussed the TRC's central themes of public acknowledgement, truth-telling, and accountability and elaborated on how the TRC approach enabled an empathic, human connection between victims and perpetrators. She also explored how, in public spaces, the interpersonal, empathic dynamic between victim and perpetrator can be extended to include broader audiences and communities. Moderated by Steven Riskin, a program officer in the Institute's Grant Program, the panel discussion was followed by questions from the floor.
Speakers
- Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Cape Town; Former Member, Human Rights Violations Committee, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Author, A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness; and U.S. Institute of Peace Grantee
- Steve Riskin, Grant Program, U.S. Institute of Peace, Moderator
To listen to audio or to view video, please click on the links provided below. You also can right click on the links and choose "Save Target As" or "Download Linked File." This will save the file to your computer and then allow you to play it in your media player directly. More Audio Help
