Novel Truths: Literature and Truth Commissions

Popular culture—film, theatre, music, and literature—often leads the way in helping a society face uncomfortable truths.

—Elizabeth Cole and Judy Barsalou, United or Divide?

This article has two objectives. Firstly, it documents the author's personal journey, initially to a place of disillusionment with a relativist stance adopted by many within the cultural studies and literary fraternity towards the truth-telling of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), notably around the time of the publication of the first five volumes of its report in 1998. The journey, however, culminated in a re-engagement with the way in which individual novelists employed this logic in their work to explore "uncomfortable truths." Secondly, the article identifies the ways in which what I call "novel truths" have duplicated the TRC's dominant discourse of "speaking truth to reconciliation," but also unpacked the silences and "unfinished business" of apartheid and the TRC. By "novel truths" I mean the unique truth practices and repertoire available to the novel as a genre, as distinct from other genres such as the human rights report. In South Africa, speaking truth to reconciliation was grounded in the provision of an officially-sanctioned testimonial space, predominantly for victims of human rights violations. This space was both framed in a discourse of forgiveness, catharsis and healing, and linked to a broader nation-building project framed in terms of reconciliation. In this endeavor, human rights ultimately facilitated the speaking of truth to reconciliation. This is unusual territory for human rights which is more accustomed to speaking truth to power, and an adversarial relationship with the state rather than one more akin to partnership. The article argues that South African novels have engaged with the speaking truth to reconciliation paradigm, but have also shone a light on issues such as the enduring appeal of revenge and retribution, the prevalence of informing and betrayal on both sides of the political divide, the complicity of white beneficiaries in apartheid's crimes, and the complexity of certain black identities (e.g., those designated "colored" who "played white").

The South African TRC is one, high profile member of an expanding global family of truth commissions. It is possible to distil the core characteristics of these institutions down to 1) a focus on the past; 2) their origins at the point of transition away from war or authoritarian rule; 3) the investigation of patterns of abuses and specific violations committed over a period of time, rather than a single event; 4) a focus on violations of human rights, and sometimes of humanitarian norms as well; 5) a temporary, short-term life span, usually culminating in the production of a report with recommendations; 6) official status, as commissions are sanctioned, authorized, or empowered by the state (and sometimes by armed opposition groups, in the context of a peace accord); and 7) a victim-centered approach.¹ Truth commissions have traditionally been seen as representing a middle path, where prosecutions may be precluded because of a negotiated settlement, tense power balance and amnesty provision, for example, but doing nothing is deemed unacceptable.

More broadly, the rallying call of transitional justice is "never again," and it seeks to engage with a past of authoritarian rule or conflict in such a way as to ensure non-repetition. Its main interventions are trials and truth commissions. Kathryn Sikkink and Carrie Booth Walling have recently made the case for a "justice cascade," with Argentina as a driving force, arguing that accountability for past human rights abuses is spreading through the increased use of mechanisms such as trials and truth commissions. Their estimate suggests that by mid-2004, 35 truth commissions had been established world-wide, and that momentum is building around this particular trend in political globalization.² Although several high profile commissions preceded the South African TRC, notably in Latin America (Argentina, Chile, El Salvador), and others have followed in its wake (Guatemala, East Timor, Sierra Leone), the South African experience is central to this expansionary narrative, for reasons which are outlined below.

Many commentators now do not see trials and truth commissions as mutually exclusive alternatives...