1-truth reconciliation in south af and beyond

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Journal of Conflict Resolution

DOI: 10.1177/0022002706287115 2006; 50; 409 Journal of Conflict Resolution

James L. Gibson Africa

The Contributions of Truth to Reconciliation: Lessons From South

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a revised version of a paper delivered at the conference on “JudgingTransitional Justice: An Interdisciplinary Workshop on New Democracies’ Coming to Terms with TheirPast,” University of California, Irvine, October 30-31, 2004. This research has been supported by the Lawand Social Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation (SES 9906576). Any opinions, findings,and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not neces-sarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The project is a collaborative effort betweenAmanda Gouws, Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), and me.I am indebted to Charles Villa-Vicencio, Helen Macdonald, Paul Haupt, Nyameka Goniwe, Fanie du Toit,Erik Doxtader, and the staff of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (South Africa), where I am adistinguished visiting research scholar, for the many helpful discussions that have informed my under-standing of the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa. Most of the research on which thisarticle relies was conducted while I was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, to which I amextremely grateful. I also acknowledge the research assistance of Eric Lomazoff, of the Russell SageFoundation. I appreciate very much the most helpful comments on an earlier version of this article byMarc Morjé Howard, Leslie Vinjamuri, Ursula van Beek, and Jack Snyder. I especially appreciate thedetailed advice of Barry O’Neill.

JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, Vol. 50 No. 3, June 2006 409-432DOI: 10.1177/0022002706287115© 2006 Sage Publications

The Contributions ofTruth to Reconciliation

LESSONS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

JAMES L. GIBSONDepartment of Political Science

Washington University in St. Louis and

Centre for Comparative and International PoliticsStellenbosch University, South Africa

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is undoubtedly the most widelydiscussed truth and reconciliation process in the world, and by many accounts, the TRC is among the mosteffective any country has yet produced. What is the explanation for its success? This article has two objec-tives. First, it seeks to identify the characteristics of South Africa’s truth and reconciliation process thatcontributed to its performance. Second, it then asks whether the truth and reconciliation process is itselfendogenous. Thus, the ultimate objective is to assess whether truth and reconciliation processes can havean independent influence on reconciliation and especially on the likelihood of consolidating an attempteddemocratic transition. The conclusion of this article is that the truth and reconciliation process in SouthAfrica did indeed exert independent influence on the democratization process through its contributionstoward creating a more reconciled society.

Keywords: reconciliation; forgiveness; South Africa; democratization

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An increasingly common feature of attempts at transition to democratic politics isthe creation of some sort of truth and reconciliation process.1 Roughly two dozensuch processes have been established, including what is probably the first Americaneffort at truth and reconciliation, the Greensboro (North Carolina) Truth andReconciliation Commission.2 Truth may not be the only route to reconciliation, butit is an increasingly popular choice of those seeking to move beyond the past to amore peaceful and democratic future.

The popularity of such transitional justice processes is in no small part a reactionto the apparent success of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC).3 At the most simplistic level, South Africa has recently celebrated its first tenyears of democracy, with a transition from apartheid that was marred by remarkablylittle bloodshed, retribution, and vengeance.4 In the eyes of many, a crucial factor inthe success of this transition was the TRC. Led by Desmond Tutu and fully sup-ported by Nelson Mandela, the process certainly generated a great deal of informa-tion if not truth (including a seven-volume report), and talk of reconciliation filledpublic discourse since the time when the commission was created. Although someSouth African commentators are less sanguine,5 many observers throughout theworld subscribe to the view that the truth process did indeed contribute to reconcil-iation in South Africa and that reconciliation has been a crucial factor in moving thecountry toward a more democratic future.

Indeed, my recently published book, Overcoming Apartheid: Can TruthReconcile a Divided Nation? (Gibson 2004), answers the question posed by thesubtitle with a cautious and qualified “yes,” at least for some groups in SouthAfrica. Based on an analysis of a representative sample of ordinary SouthAfricans, that inquiry concludes that truth and reconciliation are connected, thattruth (as promulgated by the TRC6) did not undermine reconciliation within any ofthe groups in South Africa, and that for whites, Coloured people, and those ofAsian origin, truth may actually have caused reconciliation.7 And among at least

410 JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

1. Indeed, Hayner (2001), for instance, predicts that such commissions will become even morecommon in the future.

2. See http://www.gtcrp.org [accessed June 2, 2004].3. See http://africana.rug.ac.be/texts/publications/Annelies/Survey.doc for a bibliography of nearly

450 works on the South African truth and reconciliation process [accessed June 2, 2004].4. Tetlock (1998) reports that only eleven of twenty-six experts on South Africa correctly predicted

the demise of the apartheid system.5. For instance: “The TRC is regarded as a novel experiment of restorative justice and nation-building

through reconciliation; it is often recommended as an international model for similar conflicts elsewhere;and its achievements are widely overrated outside South Africa, while largely dismissed inside” (Adamand Adam 2000, 33, emphasis added). For a contrary view, see Gibson (2005).

6. As will become clearer below, when I refer to “truth” I mean the truth about the apartheid past,as documented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC put forth this truth as acollective memory of the past. My purpose is not to judge the veracity of the TRC’s truth but rather tomeasure the degree to which ordinary South Africans judge the TRC’s conclusions to be truth.

7. For a more detailed consideration of race in South Africa, see Gibson and Gouws (2003, 35-8)and Gibson (2004, 24-7). In general, I accept the racial categories as identified by the editor of a special

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some blacks—those who are not religious—truth also seemed to facilitate recon-ciliation. The truth and reconciliation process was certainly costly, in terms of bothmoney and in the failure to produce retributive justice. But the clear conclusion ofthat research is that the truth and reconciliation process was worth its considerableprice because it contributed positively to the initiation of democratic reform inSouth Africa.

Many questions remain, however, about the exact nature of the contribution of thetruth and reconciliation processes to democratic change. Consider once more theSouth African case. My argument is that the truth process facilitated reconciliationbecause it was able to apportion blame to all sides in the struggle over apartheid(Gibson 2004). But alternative explanations are possible. For instance, let me positthat South Africa is relatively high in two characteristics: political pluralism, bywhich I mean multiple, competing centers of power, and commitment to the rule oflaw, with its emphasis on universal standards for judging behavior. These two char-acteristics themselves might have given rise to a truth and reconciliation processwith a strong propensity to cast blame on all who violated the law of human rights,including the liberation forces. As a consequence, these cultural characteristics mayhave shaped the attributes of the TRC itself. At the same time, these are the very char-acteristics that would render people receptive to the finding that all sides in the strug-gle committed gross human rights abuses. If all of this is so, the root cause of SouthAfrica’s reconciliation may not be the truth and reconciliation process itself but mayinstead be the very cultural and institutional attributes that gave rise to the commis-sion in the first place. In technical terms, the truth and reconciliation process isendogenous—it is (perhaps) not a cause of anything but is instead an effect. Themost compelling implication to follow from this analysis, if true, is that were a truthand reconciliation process established in a country without the requisite supportiveculture and institutions, that process would likely fail since the root cause of recon-ciliation lies in the culture and institutions of the country, not in the truth and recon-ciliation process itself.

Were we able to randomly assign countries to truth and reconciliation experi-ments, this causal ambiguity could be resolved. The opportunity to conduct such afield experiment is not, obviously, likely to materialize any time soon. A differentmethodology—one based in logic and grounded in the available empirical

Gibson / CONTRIBUTIONS OF TRUTH TO RECONCILIATION 411

issue of Daedalus focused on South Africa: “Many of the authors in this issue observe the South Africanconvention of dividing the country’s population into four racial categories: white (of European descent),colored (of mixed ancestry), Indian (forebears from the Indian subcontinent), and African. The officialnomenclature for ‘Africans’ has itself varied over the years, changing from ‘native’ to ‘Bantu’ in the mid-dle of the apartheid era, and then changing again to ‘black’ or, today, ‘African/black.’ All of these termsappear in the essays that follow” (see Graubard 2001, viii). Note as well that Desmond Tutu felt obligedto offer a similar caveat about race in South Africa in the final report of the TRC. Although these racialcategories were employed by the apartheid regime to divide and control the population, these are nonethe-less labels South Africans use to refer to themselves (see, e.g., Gibson and Gouws 2003). I use the termColoured to signify that this is a distinctly South African construction of race and Asian origin to refer toSouth Africans drawn from the Indian subcontinent.

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evidence—is therefore necessary if headway is to be made on unraveling thesecomplex causal interrelationships.

The purpose of this article is to explore the causal processes through which truthcommissions are connected to reconciliation. My main objective is to consider thepossibility that the truth → reconciliation relationship is spurious in the sense thatboth truth and reconciliation are caused by some other exogenous forces. Thus, Iexplicitly consider the hypothesis that truth and reconciliation processes reflectrather than cause societal reconciliation.

I begin this article with an overview of the evidence that South Africa’s truth andreconciliation process was successful, focusing in particular on the attributes of theendeavor contributing most to its accomplishments. This portion of my analysisrelies heavily on my recently published examination of the “truth causes reconcilia-tion” hypothesis.

The second portion of this article asks whether the truth and reconciliationprocess is endogenous to South African politics by developing and proposing alter-native views of the causal processes involved. This section is of necessity more spec-ulative since no earlier research has systematically investigated alternative causalmodels. I posit in particular that there are indeed elements of the South African polit-ical culture that plausibly account for reconciliation apart from the production oftruth. Nonetheless, I also argue in favor of an independent influence of the truth andreconciliation process in societal transformation. Because South Africa’s process socaptured the attention of ordinary people, and because ordinary people ascribedlegitimacy to the TRC’s truth and were so satisfied with what they observed, large-scale change in perspectives became possible and, according to my analysis, in factmaterialized.

Finally, in the concluding section, I assess whether South Africa’s experiencesmight be applicable to other political systems confronting an atrocious past. Ofcourse, it may be impossible to replicate a Tutu or a Mandela, but lessons nonethe-less emerge from the South African case that may be valuable to others attemptingto move beyond their conflictual pasts. These lessons do indeed seem applicable tomany, but perhaps not all, polities attempting to create a more reconciled, and demo-cratic, society.

THE SUCCESS OF SOUTH AFRICA’STRUTH AND RECONCILIATION PROCESS

Is there evidence that such truth and reconciliation processes have in factsucceeded? The difficulty in answering this question only begins with trying to spec-ify what the objectives of such endeavors are since, in many instances, conflictingaims are pursued simultaneously. In the South African case, the goals were reason-ably clear but included such broad objectives as creating a collective memory for thesociety, establishing and nurturing a culture of human rights in South Africa, trans-forming the society, and enhancing reconciliation, in addition to granting amnesty to


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those admitting to involvement in gross human rights violations.8 Obviously, anyrigorous assessment of the effectiveness of a truth and reconciliation process inachieving these massive goals would require unprecedented social scientific effort.Worse, other truth and reconciliation processes have had much more ambiguous andeven conflicting and contested goals.

Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? (Gibson 2004)assesses the hypothesis that truth contributes to reconciliation. “Truth” is conceptu-alized and operationalized as the degree of individual acceptance of the collectivememory promulgated by the TRC (e.g., the TRC’s conclusions that apartheid was acrime against humanity and that all sides in the struggle committed gross humanrights violations).9 This scale measures agreement with the findings of the TRC. It isnotable that interracial differences on the index are trivial.

“Reconciliation” is more complicated, consisting of four major subdimensions:(1) interracial reconciliation (rejection of interracial stereotypes and prejudice),(2) political tolerance (willingness to allow one’s political foes full rights of politi-cal contestation), (3) support for human rights principles (and, in particular, the ruleof law), and (4) the extension of legitimacy to the political institutions of the NewSouth Africa (Parliament and the Constitutional Court).10

Truth and reconciliation are measured at the level of the individual SouthAfrican—since this research is based on a representative sample of the nation, therespondents are predominantly bystanders, not victims or perpetrators—so thehypothesis is that citizens participating more in the TRC’s truth are more likely torespect and trust those of other races, to tolerate those with different political views,to support the extension of human rights to all South Africans, and to extend legiti-macy and respect to the major governing institutions of South Africa’s democracy.This is not an analysis of activists or elites or victims or perpetrators; instead, it isa study of truth acceptance and reconciliation within the broad South Africanpopulation. Since I contend that one of the primary goals of the truth and reconcili-ation process was societal transformation, this focus on a representative sample ofordinary South Africans is appropriate.


8. It is interesting that few, if any, assert that the goal of the TRC was to end the extensive politicalviolence that broke out after the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC) and the release ofNelson Mandela and other leaders in 1990. Conventional wisdom holds that more South Africans died inpolitical violence in the 1990-1994 period than in all other periods of South African history combined.Such violence started to abate just about the time at which the TRC began to function in South Africa,probably as a result of the success of the 1994 election, so it is doubtful that the truth and reconciliationprocess was a cause of peace. Contrariwise, perhaps the truth and reconciliation process played a role instopping political violence from reemerging, although counterfactuals such as this are always extremelydifficult to prove.

9. Thus, this approach addresses the broad truth about the country’s apartheid past, not the specifictruth of individual events. The latter has often been hotly contested, even by friends of the truth andreconciliation process.

10. With the possible exception of interracial tolerance, these aspects of reconciliation are applica-ble to most countries wracked by political strife. These are also essential components of a democraticpolitical culture

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Table 1 reports the correlations within South Africa’s four main racial groupsbetween acceptance of the TRC’s truth and “reconciliation.” This table is drawn frommy (Gibson 2004) analysis and uses a measure of reconciliation that summarizes thefour major subdimensions of the concept (interracial tolerance, political tolerance,support for human rights, and the extension of legitimacy to South Africa’s majorpolitical institutions). Readers should consult the book for details on these measures.

The most certain conclusion of this research is that truth did not underminereconciliation: none of the correlations is negative. Also relatively certain is the find-ing that those subscribing to the TRC’s truth are more likely to be reconciled.Significantly less certain is my causal claim (based on advanced statistical analysis)that truth did indeed create reconciliation, at least among some segments of theSouth African population. Based on this type of evidence, I draw the conclusion thattruth may have produced reconciliation in South Africa.

Through what process did truth produce reconciliation? My conclusion is that itsucceeded in getting people to rethink their views about the struggle over apartheidby creating cognitive dissonance and by mitigating cognitive dogmatism, resulting inchanges in the way South Africans feel about each other. In short, the truth and rec-onciliation process may have created uncertainty and doubt about the goodness andmorality of one’s cause. As I demonstrate below, one of its most consequential lessonswas that all sides in the struggle did horrible things. Truth exposed atrocities, perhapsmaking some people less likely to reconcile. But the TRC also documented atrocitiesby all parties in the struggle over apartheid, making many South Africans less certainabout the purity of their side and forcing people to acknowledge that the “other side”was also unfairly victimized. Recognizing the legitimacy of one’s opponents’ claimsto human rights abuses may be a necessary condition for reconciliation.

Sharing responsibility, blame, and victimhood creates a common identity, whichcan provide a basis for dialogue. If people are no longer dogmatically attached toa “good versus evil” view of the struggle, then perhaps a space for reconciliation isopened. As the commission proclaimed,

One can say that the information in the hands of the Commission made it impossibleto claim, for example, that: the practice of torture by the state security forces was notsystematic and widespread; that only a few “rotten eggs” or “bad apples” committed


TABLE 1

The Connection between Truth and Reconciliation, South Africa

Africans Truth Acceptance ———— .23 Reconciliation

Whites Truth Acceptance ———— .53 Reconciliation

Coloured people Truth Acceptance ———— .34 Reconciliation

Asian origin Truth Acceptance ———— .09 Reconciliation

SOURCE: Gibson (2004).

NOTE: Entries shown are bivariate correlation coefficients.

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gross violations of human rights; that the state was not directly and indirectly involvedin “black-on-black” violence; that the chemical and biological warfare programme wasonly of a defensive nature; that slogans by sections of the liberation movement did notcontribute to killings of “settlers” or farmers; and that the accounts of gross humanrights violations in the African National Congress (ANC) camps were the consequenceof state disinformation. Thus, disinformation about the past that had been accepted astruth by some members of society lost much of its credibility. (Truth and ReconciliationCommission, Final Report 1998, 1:111-2)

But just how does reconciliation lead to the consolidation of democratic transi-tions?11 Reconciliation can give rise, in turn, to the consolidation of democraticchange through several specific processes related to the reduction of intergroup con-flict. These are described in Table 2.

Table 2 portrays a set of mechanisms through which reconciliation institutionsand processes might help mitigate intergroup conflict and enhance the prospects ofdemocratic consolidation. Briefly, political tolerance means supporting the exten-sion of the rights of political competition (e.g., speech, assembly) to all who wouldcompete in the marketplace of ideas. Intergroup prejudice refers to the suspension ofgroup stereotypes and the extension of intergroup trust. The legitimacy of humanrights values signifies the willingness of both masses and elites to support key prin-ciples of human rights (e.g., universalism in the rule of law). In addition, the institu-tions of the new system must be granted the authority to make binding decisions(legitimacy), thereby generating a presumption of compliance and acquiescence tolaw (e.g., Tyler and Huo 2002). Finally, by building and certifying a collectivememory of the past, a truth and reconciliation process can free a society from its


TABLE 2

Connecting Reconciliation and Democratic Consolidation

Mechanism for Mitigating Intergroup ConflictComponent of Reconciliation and Enhancing Democratic Consolidation

Reduction of political intolerance Expansion of individual freedom and an unrestricted marketplace of ideas

Reduction of intergroup prejudice Increased intergroup trust and cooperation

Support for a human rights culture Increased constraints on the ability of authorities tosuspend/manipulate the rule of law

Institutional legitimacy Expanded capacity of institutions to make unpopular but necessary decisions; increased acquiescence

Collective memory Redirecting political debate from the past to the future

11. Some may view reconciliation as an end in and of itself. For political scientists, reconciliationis probably more interesting to the extent that it contributes to a political culture that is supportive ofdemocratic institutions and processes (on political culture, see below). For others, reconciliation may con-tribute to civil peace, irrespective of whether the system is democratic.

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obsession with past injustices, redirecting political debate to contemporary issues.While intercorrelated, each of these factors is hypothesized to contribute indepen-dently to the mitigation of intergroup conflict and the consolidation of democraticreform through the identified mechanism.

CONDITIONS CONTRIBUTING TO THE SUCCESS OF THESOUTH AFRICAN TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION PROCESS

From the South African case, it is possible to draw several general conclusionsabout the factors contributing to the effectiveness of truth and reconciliation processes.

(1) The process must penetrate society, capturing the attention of all of its seg-ments. If society is to be changed by the revelations and conclusions of a truth com-mission, then people must pay attention to the information. For instance, the SouthAfrican Broadcast Corporation aired special reports on the TRC every Sunday fromApril 1996 until March 1998, and the program often scored as among the most pop-ular on South African television. And TV exposure was minuscule in comparisonto radio exposure, which is crucial since radio is the most widely available informa-tion medium for most South Africans. The process made known, in highly personal-ized and excruciating detail, the suffering of thousands of individual South Africans.The atrocities committed during the struggle over apartheid were not abstractions butwere, instead, deeply human losses that resonated with South Africans of every color.Through its numerous hearings in every part of the country, including the hinterland,the TRC pierced the consciousness of nearly all South Africans. With such saturation,it seems likely that everyone had the opportunity to judge the TRC’s conclusions.

(2) Legalistic processes are less successful at capturing the attention of peoplethan simple “truth-telling” events. Without denying the loss of important due processrights when the legalistic process is relaxed, I believe the TRC made its work accessi-ble by allowing ordinary people to tell their stories largely unhindered by adversary-style proceedings. Many of these stories captured the imagination of broad segmentsof South African society; if the goal is the transformation of a political culture, tri-als and legalistic proceedings are unlikely to contribute much because they fail tocapture and hold the attention of ordinary people.

(3) South Africa’s TRC was charged with ideological and partisan bias virtuallyfrom the day it was created, and in the end, the commission was condemned by essen-tially all political parties in South Africa, from the ANC to the Inkatha Freedom Party(IFP). Many treat this as evidence of the evenhandedness of the TRC (a few dubbedit “poisonous evenhandedness”). Generally, most South Africans seem to be satisfiedwith the impartiality of the commission and its work (Gibson 2005). For example,roughly three-fourths of black South Africans approve of the work of the commission,although the racial minorities (whites, Coloured people, and those of Asian origin) areless positive toward it. The commission did not engage in a “witch-hunt,” contrary tothe allegations of some extreme segments of the white Afrikaans-speaking population.Because it did not, its findings and conclusions were not widely rejected by ordinary


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people; little justification was available to most South Africans for repudiating outof hand the collective memory produced by the proceedings. To succeed, a truth andreconciliation process cannot be an agent of the victor in the struggle (which was ofcourse relatively easy in the South African case since the brokered transition producedno hegemonic victor). Impartiality contributes to the legitimacy of (and acceptance of)the truth process’s collective memory.

(4) The most puissant characteristic of the collective memory created by SouthAfrica’s TRC was its willingness to attribute blame to all parties engaging in thestruggle over apartheid.12 Because all participants did horrible things—even if theydid not do them with equal ferocity or frequency—all sides were compromised tosome degree, and legitimacy adhered to the complaints of their enemies aboutabuses. Whites cannot believe today that their apartheid state committed no atroci-ties against blacks. Blacks cannot believe today that the liberation forces did notunfairly harm both black and white South Africans. Once one concedes that the otherside has legitimate grievances, it becomes easier to accept some of its claims and,ultimately, to affirm the new political dispensation. Promulgating this view of sharedblame was probably the single most important—and influential—characteristic ofthe South African truth and reconciliation process.13

(5) Another effective but perhaps idiosyncratic element of South Africa’s truthand reconciliation process was its emphasis on nonretributive forms of justice.Despite granting amnesty to gross human rights violators, the truth and reconcilia-tion process in South Africa generated justice that appeared to satisfy many—it over-came the “justice deficit.” The compensatory justice was in part distributive (but inthe view of many, a too small part) but was also procedural and restorative. Allowingpeople to come forward and tell their stories—and allowing South Africans to hearthese stories, in all their shocking, human detail—had a tremendous effect on howpeople reacted to the truth and reconciliation process. And undoubtedly, some per-petrators expressed heartfelt remorse, apologizing for their actions in terms that werewidely understood to be sincere. The truth and reconciliation process contemplatedthat distributive justice (compensation) might ameliorate the pain of failing toreceive retributive justice. But few who designed and participated in the process


12. Leslie Vinjamuri (personal communication, 2004) has suggested that this argument about theneed to blame all sides may be inconsistent with efforts in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) toblame all three ethnic groups for gross human rights violations. It seems at least possible that the politi-cal cultures in the FRY were not particularly committed to the rule of law and that, after the war, no truthprocess was put into place to legitimize the grievances of all sides in the conflagration. Consequently,each side remained firmly committed to its unreconstructed and unreconciled version of the truth. Thus,blaming all sides may not be a successful strategy in all circumstances. One objective of this article is toattempt to identify the conditions under which such approaches to truth can be effective.

13. It is difficult to imagine an armed struggle in which atrocities are not committed by all parties,even if “victor’s justice” tends not to apply the same standards to all combatants. The impartial truth aboutwhich I write here would have no difficulty laying blame at the doorsteps of both sides of theIsraeli/Palestinian dispute, the Catholic/Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland, and even the American/Iraqi turmoil. When “security concerns,” “wars against terrorism,” or a crusade are allowed to trump equaland universal applications of human rights principles, then whatever truth might be produced is unlikely tohave legitimacy with all parties, and truth is therefore unlikely to contribute to reconciliation.

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anticipated that procedural and restorative justice could have such salutary conse-quences. Other truth processes have foundered, owing to their inability to generatecompensatory forms of justice capable of mollifying citizens and getting them toaccept the injustices forced on them by the transitional process.

(6) Finally, the roles of Tutu and Mandela were no doubt instrumental in gettingpeople to accept the TRC’s collective memory and to get on with reconciliation.Tutu’s message of forgiveness, though irritating to many, set a compelling frame ofreference for moving beyond the atrocities uncovered. Mandela’s constant and insis-tent calls for reconciliation, coupled with his willingness to accept the findings of theTRC (even when the ANC did not), were surely persuasive for many South Africans.The two giants of the anti-apartheid struggle defused and delegitimized much of thepotential criticism of the truth and reconciliation process.

The key issue for societal transformation is getting people to accept a commis-sion’s version of the truth. Not all truths can be “sold” to the people. But a truth thatis impartial—as signaled by its willingness to cast blame wherever blame isdeserved—gains credibility, especially when backed by leaders who are trusted. Tochange society, a collective memory must be proffered, and people must pay atten-tion. In South Africa, the TRC seemed to succeed at both getting the attention of thepeople and persuading them of its view of the struggle over apartheid. Thus, Icontend that the South African truth and reconciliation process was persuasive, andit succeeded in part due to the nature of the truth it promulgated.

CONNECTING TRUTH WITHRECONCILIATION: CAUSAL MECHANISMS

In a superb recent study of transitional justice mechanisms, Snyder and Vinjamuri(2003; see also Vinjamuri and Snyder 2004) reach a somewhat different conclusionabout the effectiveness of truth and reconciliation processes. Focusing on an analy-sis of thirty-two cases of civil wars between 1989 and 2003, they conclude that “truthcommissions contribute to democratic consolidation only when a prodemocracycoalition holds power in a fairly well institutionalized state. Absent those conditions,truth commissions can have perverse effects, sometimes exacerbating tensions andat other times providing public relations smoke screens for regimes that continue toabuse rights. Apparent successes of truth commissions are better attributed to theeffects of the amnesties that accompany them” (Snyder and Vinjamuri 2003, 20).14

Furthermore, “truth commissions have most often been the choice of states whosestability depends on the cooperation of still-powerful potential spoilers. We findthat truth commissions are most likely to be useful when they provide political coverfor amnesties, and when they help a strong, reformist coalition to undertake the


14. It is unclear to me whether Snyder and Vinjamuri (2003) take into account the wide diversity inthe structures, functions, and mandates of truth commissions throughout the world. In many respects, theSouth African truth and reconciliation process was unique, and it may well be the peculiar aspects of thatprocess that contributed so much to its success.

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strengthening of legal institutions as part of a strategy based on the logic of conse-quences” (p. 31).15 This conclusion, if true, may undermine my contention that theSouth African truth and reconciliation process had an independent impact onreconciliation (although providing political cover is certainly a form of impact) since(a) the South African process included an amnesty mechanism, and (b) it may be thatthe prodemocratic ANC and the highly institutionalized South African state createdreconciliation, rather than the truth and reconciliation process itself.

Thus, it is useful to try to disentangle the various concepts and causal processesby which truth, reconciliation, and democratic consolidation might be connected.Perhaps in the end, a rapprochement can be found between my claim that truth pro-duces reconciliation and the Snyder and Vinjamuri claim that the key causal agent isthe preexisting characteristics of the society’s institutions.

Figure 1 depicts a set of processes through which the production of truth (acollective memory) might give rise to democratic consolidation.16 I begin this dis-cussion with the argument that truth makes an independent contribution to democ-ratic consolidation, which is how I understand the causality involved in the process.

The first hypothesis in this figure (the hypothesis advanced to this point in thearticle) is that the activities of the TRC gave rise to a collective memory. Of course,for a TRC to be influential, it must have captured the attention of the people in acountry; awareness must precede conversion. As I have argued, the South Africancase is certainly one in which the activities of the TRC received widespread atten-tion over a long period of time.

Not all collective memories contribute to reconciliation. I hypothesize that truththat apportions blame to all sides in the past conflict is most effective at enhancingreconciliation (and, as I have noted, it is difficult to imagine a conflict in which thisclaim is in fact not true). The first step on the road to reconciliation is the realizationthat one’s opponents were unfairly victimized and that one’s own side bears someresponsibility. In South Africa, the TRC’s evenhanded message that all sides didhorrible things during the struggle contributed to reconciliation.17

Thus, according to this logic, truth makes an independent contribution to democra-tic consolidation by changing society, changing how people think about their own sideand about their opponents.18 A simplified view of the causality involved is as follows:

Truth → Reconciliation → Democratic Consolidation


15. Many believe that the granting of amnesty to gross human rights violators itself underminesinstitutions, especially legal institutions, grounded on the principle of the rule of law (e.g., Neier 1998).For evidence that this was not the case in South Africa, see Gibson (2005).

16. Students of democratization distinguish between the initiation of democracy and the consolida-tion of democracy. The latter is defined as only possible when “political competitors . . . come to regarddemocracy (and the laws, procedures, and institutions it specifies) as ‘the only game in town,’ the onlyviable framework for governing the society and advancing their own interests” (Diamond 1999, 65).

17. Factors other than truth obviously also contribute to reconciliation. I represent these variableswith “Interracial Contact” since Overcoming Apartheid (Gibson 2004) reports that contact in the SouthAfrican case is also a strong predictor of interracial reconciliation.

18. It would be foolish to argue that only truth and reconciliation processes contribute to democra-tic consolidation, so I include in Figure 1 other important determinants of democratic consolidation underthe label “Etc.”

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Of course, other factors also contribute to reconciliation, just as democratic consolidationis dependent on additional factors such as wealth, equality, and cultural homogeneity.

THE ENDOGENEITY OF THE SOUTH AFRICANTRUTH AND RECONCILIATION PROCESS

The alternative view that must receive careful consideration is that the truth andreconciliation process is endogenous to South African society and, therefore, that theprocess had no independent impact on reconciliation or democratic consolidation.That is, truth and reconciliation processes are created by a society, and the veryforces that lead to the creation of such institutions may be the primary causes of bothreconciliation and democratization. Snyder and Vinjamuri (2003) emphasize the roleof a prodemocracy political party holding power and of having a well-institutionalizedstate. These factors may be influential, but they are most likely also derived frombroader characteristics of the political culture of the polity. Thus, these factors maythemselves be endogenous to a political system.

More generally, I acknowledge that the success of a TRC may be dependent onthe larger political culture of the polity.19 Not only does political culture determinethe nature of the collective memory produced, but it also independently and directlyfosters reconciliation. If so, the relationship between truth and reconciliationprocesses and democratization may be spurious.


Figure 1: Processes Linking Political Cultures, Truth, Reconciliation, and DemocraticConsolidation

TRC Activities

Truth- CollectiveMemory

PoliticalCulture

Etc.(InterracialContact)

Reconciliation[See Table 2] Democratic

Consolidation

Etc. (WealthEquality,

Homogeneity)

19. Political culture may be thought of as the beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors that predom-inate in a political system. Culture is important because it gives rise to norms and expectations that influ-ence political action. Political cultures do not necessarily dictate public policies, but they do set broadconstraints on the policy options available to elites.

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But just what specific aspects of the political culture might contribute to a success-ful truth and reconciliation process? From the South African case, several factors seemto be important, including the following: the nature of the legislation establishing thetruth and reconciliation process, the support within South African political culture forthe rule of law, political pluralism, the amnesty process itself, the size of the victim andperpetrator populations, and the leadership of the truth and reconciliation process.Figure 2 provides an overview of the various exogenous factors I hypothesize to beinfluential in producing reconciliation and democratic consolidation.

THE ENABLING LEGISLATION

The legislation creating the TRC (passed with wide parliamentary support) wasspecifically designed to enhance the impartiality of the proceedings. For instance,the commission itself was intended to be broadly representative of all interests in thestruggle over apartheid, and the legislation mandated that gross human rights viola-tions be investigated irrespective of the ideological position of the perpetrator. Thecommissioners selected to serve were indeed ideologically balanced.20 And, as I havenoted, the work of the TRC has been bitterly criticized by “just war” advocates forits “poisonous evenhandedness.”

Of course, law itself may be endogenous to the political system, so this explanationdoes not go a great distance in solving the problem of causal mechanisms. That is,


Truth and Reconciliation

Process

Rule of Law

Political Pluralism

Amnesty

Extent of Injuries

Leadership

Evenhandedness

Leadership

Societal Penetration

Impact

Macro Model

Figure 2: A Macro-Level Model of the Influence of the Truth and Reconciliation Process

20. Useful accounts of the day-to-day operation of truth commissions have been published. Forinstance, Boraine (2000) gives the insider’s view of the politics of South Africa’s TRC. So too does Orr(2000), although her story is both more personal and more connected to specific cases before the TRC.The transformation of an individual commissioner is documented by Gobodo-Madikizela’s (2003) mov-ing account of her meetings with one of apartheid’s worst assassins. Several highly informative antholo-gies on truth commissions have been published. In the South African case, none is better than thatcompiled by Villa-Vicencio and Verwoerd (2000).

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the characteristics that caused the law to emphasize impartiality may be the ultimatecause of the performance of the TRC, not the law itself. As many have argued, lawis rarely an entirely exogenous force in processes of social change.

SOUTH AFRICA’S RULE OF LAW CULTURE

More controversial will surely be my claim that South Africa’s relatively strongsupport for the rule of law contributed to the success of the truth and reconciliationprocess. Because this argument will seem counterintuitive to those who equateapartheid with arbitrary rule, it must be discussed in some detail.

In some sense, apartheid may appear to be a system entirely at odds with the ruleof law. Certainly, there was no equality before the law, and indeed by the constitu-tional scheme implemented in 1983, Africans were meant to be largely expelledfrom South Africa (relocated in Bantustans) through forced removals and ethniccleansing (e.g., so-called black spots). Such a system can hardly be considered toexemplify the rule of law.

But at least in terms of procedure, apartheid was very much a system based on therule of law.21 For instance, the respected legal observer John Dugard asserts, “Lawplayed a pivotal role in the apartheid state. Racial discrimination and political repres-sion were not practiced outside the law in an arbitrary and unregulated manner. Onthe contrary, racial injustice was perpetrated in accordance with legal rules, andpolitical repression was administered according to carefully defined legal proce-dures” (Abel 1995, XIII).22 The contrast here should not be between South Africaand fully functioning democracies but rather between South Africa and otherauthoritarian regimes. Authoritarian (or totalitarian) rule is often arbitrary rule—asrepresented in the phrases “legal nihilism” or even “telephone justice”—and theantithesis of the rule of law is arbitrariness. Of course, a rule-based system can berepressive—law can serve tyrants and democrats well, even if perhaps not equallywell—but to a remarkable degree, South Africa provided procedural protections tothose to whom it denied substantive rights.23 Perhaps the Snyder and Vinjamuri(2003) prodemocracy institutions argument might be more precisely delineated interms of one of the subcomponents of democracy—institutional and culturalcommitments to the rule of law.24

An argument contrary to this would rely on at least two factors: the frequent sus-pension of law through emergency proclamations and the use of covert and entirely


21. On the rule of law in Africa, see Widner (2001). She seems to agree with my view that the ruleof law can be compatible with abhorrent, entirely unjust statutes.

22. This quote is taken from the “Foreword” to Abel’s (1995) book, written by John Dugard.23. One cannot help but be impressed by Mandela’s reports in his autobiography (1994) of the fre-

quency of formal hearings granted prisoners at Robben Island. See also Buntman (2003) for similar accounts.24. Snyder and Vinjamuri (2003) are surely correct in arguing that the distribution of political power

has a crucial influence on peace and reconciliation. But they believe that the consequence of the powerbalance is mainly to allow a prodemocratic coalition to assume power. Perhaps it is not actually supportfor democracy that is important but rather that all sides in the conflict have sufficient power to ensure thatthe gross human rights violations they experienced get recognized and acknowledged. It is not necessarilydemocracy that gives rise to evenhandedness; instead, pluralism may be the primary cause.

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illegal activity against members of the anti-apartheid struggle (e.g., de Kock 1998).Neither of these can be denied.

Yet in a curious way, each supports my argument. When the South Africans feltit necessary to suspend ordinary civil law, they did so through established, legalisticmethods. Stalin never sought a declaration of martial law in the Soviet Union; lawrarely if ever impeded his actions. In contrast, procedural regularity was an impor-tant characteristic of rule by apartheid.25

As has been argued elsewhere (Gibson 2004), white South Africans claimed notto have known about covert activities by their government against the anti-apartheidmovement. Furthermore, I contend that the revelations of such widespread illicitactivity actually contributed to reconciliation among whites by fostering the beliefthat blacks had legitimate grievances against the apartheid system. Thus, it seemsentirely possible that the commitment of white South Africans to the rule of lawmade them responsive to the TRC’s revelations of gross government misconduct.

White South Africans have long looked to Europe and European culture andtraditions for approval and sustenance. An important aspect of the racism that dom-inated the culture was the belief that Europeans are different from (superior to)Africans. One way in which this superiority is manifest is through the commitmentto “democracy” (of a sort) and to institutions such as the rule of law. Some empiri-cal evidence does indeed indicate that South Africans, especially whites, express alevel of commitment to the rule of law that is quite similar to that of Europeans (e.g.,Gibson and Gouws 1997; Gibson 2004).

This preference for legal universalism shaped to a considerable degree theproceedings of the truth and reconciliation process,26 particularly the willingness toblame all sides in the struggle for abuses of human rights. The “just war” theory thatmight excuse atrocities was certainly put forth in some quarters in South Africa, butit failed to carry the day with the TRC itself. Legal universalism, in which all sideswere held accountable to the same ecumenical standards, dominated the conclusionsof the truth and reconciliation process.27

Thus, I argue that the truth and reconciliation process succeeded in part due to itswillingness to judge evenhandedly, applying the same standards to all parties, andthat this practice was countenanced (and legitimized) by a fairly widespread com-mitment in the culture to the rule of law (legal universalism). This commitment


25. Although I have not conducted a systematic comparison of the Soviet Union and South Africa,the contrast between the Rivonia trial (sending Nelson Mandela and others to prison) and Stalin’s showtrials in terms of the rule of law seems stark.

26. Even the exceptions to this assertion support my argument that a high degree of commitment tothe rule of law characterized this process. When the TRC granted blanket amnesty to the ANCleadership—an action clearly outside its authority—the decision was challenged and overturned by theConstitutional Court. In addition, through litigation, the TRC was forced to extend due process to allegedperpetrators. Concern for due process shaped many aspects of the commission’s activities. Of course, theavailability of such institutions as the Constitutional Court—which had sufficient legitimacy to get itsdecisions accepted—may be one of the institutional factors identified by Snyder and Vinjamuri (2003) ascontributing to the consolidation of democracy.

27. Again, I should emphasize that neither I nor the TRC is asserting that gross human rights viola-tions committed by the government and the liberation forces were in any sense of equal scale or breadth.

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reflects in part the European origins of South African whites and their continuinguse of Europe as a reference group, as well as their desire to win the approval ofEuropeans and the rest of the Western world. Thus, in this sense, the success of thetruth and reconciliation process may reflect a larger cultural commitment to the ruleof law in South Africa.

The rule of law and trials

The above argument may seem to imply that formal legal proceedings (trials) wouldbe the preferred means of dealing with gross human rights violations. Perhaps trialswere preferred, but

(a) given that the apartheid bureaucracy remained in full power from 1990 until1994, the evidence necessary to produce convictions, especially to the stan-dards of due process, was absent, missing, or destroyed and/or believed to beso (Harris 2000).

(b) the early prosecution of Defense Minister Magnus Malan for murders com-mitted during the apartheid era—which resulted in an acquittal in 1996—demonstrated the extraordinary financial and political costs (and perhapsfutility) of formal legal proceedings.

(c) the ANC had little if any choice in accepting amnesty since the apartheidforces made amnesty a nonnegotiable demand in the bargaining during thetransition. The ANC was weakened by the loss of support from the SovietUnion, the South African Defense Force was still a formidable institution,and no one wanted to fight a full-scale civil war in South Africa. Widespreadtrials were therefore simply not feasible.

(d) perhaps most important, early on in the process, the TRC decided that itsprimary job was societal transformation, and it therefore sought to commu-nicate with all segments of South African society. Trials may be good atsome things, but they are not a very effective means of telling stories under-standable to ordinary people. In some sense, the fact-finding process imple-mented by the TRC became a means to the greater end of societaltransformation and reconciliation.

The truth and reconciliation process therefore sought to implement universalprinciples of human rights but without full-scale legalistic procedures.

POLITICAL PLURALISM

South Africa—even white South Africa under apartheid—is characterized bymultiple, competing centers of political power. Among blacks, for instance, theTraditional Leaders are a potent conservative force organized in the Congress ofTraditional Leaders in South Africa (Contralesa), and they often oppose the actions


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and positions of the ANC. From the left wing, the same might be said of Cosatu (theCongress of South African Trade Unions). And of course, the Inkatha Freedom Party(and other minor parties such as the Pan Africanist Congress) often stands in strongopposition to the ANC.

Whites too are divided, reflecting in part longstanding enmity between Englishand Afrikaans speakers (a cleavage reinforced by other factors as well, includingdifferent and often contending mass media). Moreover, the density of activistnongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is likely as high in South Africa as any-where else in the world. And, unlike many countries, especially in Africa, the eyesof the world (e.g., the BBC) are often focused on South Africa.

The consequence of this pluralism is that South Africa’s truth and reconciliationprocess was heavily scrutinized by parties representing a variety of disparate inter-ests, making deviations from impartiality costly. Because there are competingcenters of power in South African society, no single interest can run roughshod overthe others. Such a distribution of power, of course, serves legal universalism well.The motivation to hold all parties to the same human rights expectations, coupledwith the dispersion of power across a broad ideological range, may well havecontributed to the effectiveness of the truth and reconciliation process.

AMNESTY

As I have noted, Snyder and Vinjamuri (2003) argue that the crucial element intransitional justice processes is amnesty. Especially in instances of negotiated settle-ments, in which neither side in the struggle emerges as hegemonic, the potential forthe representatives of the old regime to serve as spoilers for democratic reform is soformidable that their allegiance to the new regime must be bought through amnesty.It is difficult for reconciliation to get a foothold in the midst of legal struggles overthe sins of the ancien regime.

It is virtually impossible to distinguish between the truth and reconciliationprocess in general and the amnesty process in particular. Undeniably, amnesty neu-tralized the forces of apartheid, allowing the ANC to take control of the governmentand smoothing the transitional process. But the truth and reconciliation process wasabout far more than amnesty, and even amnesty hearings often turned into tutorialson reconciliation and forgiveness. Moreover, perhaps the most important aspect ofthe truth and reconciliation process was that victims were given voice—they wereprovided the opportunity to come forth and tell their stories and receive acknowl-edgment and, to some degree, a restoration of their dignity. In this sense, the amnestyprocess turned attention to the victims, not mainly to the perpetrators, and therebyprovided a compelling set of human interest vignettes that captured the imaginationof all South Africans, black, white, Coloured, and Indian. According to Snyderand Vinjamuri (2003), amnesty defuses the impact of spoilers. In South Africa, itcertainly did that, and to neutralize the pro-apartheid segment of the population wasno small feat. But amnesty did much more by humanizing the victims of the terrible


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deeds committed during the struggle over apartheid, making coexistence and tolerance(if not full reconciliation) more likely.28

THE EXTENT OF INJURIES INFLICTED DURINGTHE STRUGGLE WITH THE PRIOR REGIME

In societies such as Rwanda, in which vast proportions of the population wereaffected in one way or another by human rights atrocities, reconciliation seems a dis-tant dream. In South Africa, however, the proportion of the population directlyinjured by apartheid was large but far from enormous. When asked in a generalquery whether they suffered any harm under apartheid, fully 68 percent of the blackrespondents in a national survey claimed not to have been injured by apartheid(Gibson 2004). This is an astounding figure. Of course, when provided with specificexamples of injuries, the percentages are higher, but it is noteworthy that (at the twoextremes) only a small proportion of these respondents was actually imprisoned bythe authorities (9.9 percent), while 43.7 percent claim to have been harmed by notbeing permitted to associate with people of different races or colors. Lack of accessto education is another widely experienced harm. Still, a large minority of Africans(39.4 percent) claims no specific injuries from this set of comprehensive questionson apartheid injuries. Indeed, only slightly more than one-third claim to have beensubjected to the infamous pass laws.

My intention is not to depreciate the tremendous damage that apartheid did to SouthAfricans, especially black South Africans. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the strug-gle over apartheid was not a civil war, and vast proportions of blacks, whites, Colouredpeople, and those of Asian origin were not directly engaged in or perhaps even directlyaffected by the struggle over apartheid. This no doubt makes reconciliation a lessdemanding task. The foregoing suggests the general hypothesis that the larger the pro-portion of the population that was essentially bystanders during the conflict, the morelikely is reconciliation. If this is so, then truth and reconciliation processes may not bevery effective in polities in which historical grievances are commonplace.

STRONG AND INDEPENDENT LEADERSHIP

The TRC has been criticized for being “hijacked” by Archbishop Desmond Tutuand especially for placing a strong religious veneer on its activities (e.g., Wilson 2001).Whatever the validity of that criticism, few would doubt that Archbishop Tutu hadstrong and independent views of the nature of the mandate extended to the TRC. Atthe same time, Nelson Mandela was an inveterate supporter of the TRC, even when itreleased its final report, in which the ANC was subjected to some intense criticism.

The success of the truth and reconciliation process undoubtedly reflects the promi-nence and charisma of Tutu and Mandela. In particular, Tutu’s religious ideology fits


28. It is beyond the scope of this article (but not of Gibson 2004) to consider “reconciliation” com-prehensively. In my view, the necessary condition of reconciliation is tolerance, not forgiving, nor accep-tance, nor even the suspension of hatred. In a society rent by intense political conflict, tolerance istypically the maximal realistic outcome possible.

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well with dominant notions of reconciliation, especially reconciliation involvingforgiveness. Perhaps more important was Tutu’s relative independence, especiallyfrom the ANC. Tutu was quite effective at casting blame in all directions, withMandela’s support of the TRC providing an important part of the political coverrequired to maintain the commission’s independence. Without independence, “victor’sjustice” might prevail, with the ability to blame all sides for their human rights abusesseverely constrained.

SUMMARY

There can be little doubt that a truth and reconciliation process reflects the attrib-utes of the political system and the culture implementing it. Because South Africanshold a relatively strong commitment to the rule of law, legal universalism became anelemental principle of the truth and reconciliation process, and this universalism ledto a willingness to blame all human rights violators irrespective of party or ideology.It seems quite likely that institutional arrangements not compatible with dominantcultural values would have little chance of success (e.g., a process based on legaluniversalism in a culture in which the rule of law is not highly regarded). As aprocess of societal transformation, the truth and reconciliation process obviously isdependent on the country’s culture.

At the same time, however, the success of South Africa’s truth and reconciliationprocess was far from preordained by its political culture. For instance, the commis-sion was often under intense pressure from the government and the ANC, and ittypically (but not invariably) refused to succumb to that pressure. The outcome couldeasily have been different. Nothing in the political culture made it inevitable thatwhites would begin to accept some blame for the sins of apartheid, that blacks wouldrecognize that human rights were also sacrificed in the name of liberation, or that allSouth Africans would agree to coexist, to tolerate, to at least some extent. On thecontrary, all of this came about as a result of the revelations of the TRC; without theTRC, it is unclear how these revelations could have been made and so widely pub-licized. Certainly, the truth and reconciliation process capitalized on existing culturalpredispositions, but it is also quite likely that the culture changed as a result of theactions and revelations of the process itself. Thus, I posit an interactive (multiplica-tive) effect between a system’s political culture and the efforts of a truth commis-sion: each is dependent on the other, just as each is necessary to the effectivenessof the process. And I acknowledge that these cultural requisites may limit thegeneralizability of the South African experience.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Causal inferences, even under the best of circumstances, are never certain; estab-lishing a consensus on causality in the sociopolitical world is always a demanding ifnot intractable task. For instance, does HIV cause AIDS? In South Africa, PresidentMbeki has denied that HIV is a cause of AIDS (citing poverty as the causal agent),


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while the Catholic bishops have proclaimed that AIDS is caused by the use ofcondoms! Did the fall of communism in the Soviet Union cause the democratic tran-sition in South Africa? Certainly a case can be made that the ANC felt less certainof winning a civil war against apartheid without Soviet support and therefore becamemore inclined to accept a seat at the bargaining table. But alternative causalprocesses are plausible as well. When we address even larger questions such aswhether truth causes reconciliation, the fainthearted are tempted to either throw uptheir hands or toss a coin since research on large processes of societal transforma-tion can rarely if ever provide unequivocal evidence on what causes what. The bestthose determined to draw conclusions about causality can do is to suggest a plausi-ble causal structure for the key variables that is not contradicted by available empir-ical evidence.

In this article, I have identified a causal process through which truth might haveled to reconciliation in South Africa. The process produced a truth that stimulatedmany South Africans to reconceptualize the struggle over apartheid as somethingother than a clash between infinite good against unremitting evil. In rethinking thebattle over apartheid, many South Africans came to appreciate the unfair harmsexperienced by their longtime foes, began to accept that at least some of the justifi-cations for the opposing side were legitimate, and therefore began to accept that tol-erance was justified and ought to prevail. “Putting the past behind” through socialamnesia is unlikely to generate such salutary effects. Nor is victor’s justice. SouthAfrica is not a fully reconciled society (by a long shot), but the truth and reconcili-ation process gave reconciliation a strong initial impetus that may well carry the day.

Discussions about truth commissions often contrast two polar opposites: vindi-cating the past by strict enforcement of human rights regulations through prosecu-tions of miscreants versus pragmatic amnesties recognizing the greater importanceof the future than the past (Snyder and Vinjamuri 2003 quite appropriately refer tothese as stressing either the “logic of appropriateness” versus the “logic of conse-quences”). In this article, I have identified a third, compromise pathway: strict con-demnation of all who violate universal human rights standards but without extensiveprosecution (perhaps to be called a “logic of rational hypocrisy”). In this fashion, theprinciple of universalism is compromised to a lesser degree, while pragmatic con-siderations prevail in documenting the past but preparing for the future.

Must the truth of truth and reconciliation be true? This is a difficult question toanswer in the abstract. But the truth I find to be most efficacious—that all sides inthe struggle did horrible things—is a truth available in virtually all conflicts. Surelythere are limits to what people will accept, but evenhandedness in establishing thetruth about atrocities is often attractive to people and therefore can be persuasive.Evenhandedness provides truth commissions with legitimacy, and legitimacy iscrucial to getting a collective memory accepted by the population.

Are alternative causal structures also possible? In this article, I have admittedthe possibility that truth may have had little to do with reconciliation. Instead, theexpressed commitment to the rule of law, coupled with fairly substantial political


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pluralism, may have given rise to a truth process emphasizing legal universalism andevenhandedness, just as these cultural characteristics made the findings of the com-mission palatable and thereby enhanced reconciliation. From this vantage point, thetruth and reconciliation process had questionable independent influence on societalreconciliation.

Most likely, a complex causal structure accounts for the South African outcome. Itmay well be that the nature of the truth and reconciliation process was in fact influ-enced by the political culture of the country (including the prominent role assigned tolegally trained people and theologians). But the effectiveness of the truth and recon-ciliation process was not therefore preordained. The truth and reconciliation processhad to stick to its commitment to legal universalism and evenhandedness, evendespite intense political pressure to the contrary. The TRC itself had to develop andexecute a strategy of involving all segments of society in its work. The decision toeschew strictly legal proceedings may not have been based on the explicit desire tomaximize the influence of the process on the broader society, but, I contend, the con-sequence of that decision was that ordinary South Africans found the process engag-ing and compelling. Perhaps the political culture of the country did prepare SouthAfricans for a successful truth and reconciliation process—by predisposing people toresonate with the TRC’s appeals, by providing political capital for the commissioners—but because the process could have turned out otherwise—by blaming the apartheidgovernment exclusively for their “crimes against humanity”—I argue that the truthand reconciliation process had independent agency in South Africa’s transition.Complex causal processes always involve multicollinearity—independent variablesthat are themselves intercorrelated to the extent that the independent contribution ofeach independent variable is difficult if not impossible to discern.

Jack Snyder (personal communication, 2004) has suggested two critical factorsthat might assist in unraveling the causal process. First, did the rival parties make asolid agreement settling their differences and then simply go through the motions ofcreating a truth and reconciliation process with the power to grant amnesty? Is so,then the initial agreement is probably the primary causal agent. Second, did the pre-vailing political coalition monopolize publicity about the truth and reconciliationprocess and “spin” the findings for its own purposes, or did public views of theprocess emerge on the basis of pluralistic debate and free reporting?

In the South African case, few would argue that the TRC was simply “goingthrough the motions”; indeed, the contrary view that the process spun completely outof control of its creators is entirely more plausible. Moreover, information about thetruth and reconciliation process was extraordinarily diverse and prevalent and com-pletely outside the control of even the commission itself. That the findings of theTRC were so widely and vigorously attacked (politically and legally) by all majorpolitical forces in the country suggests that the process attained independent agency.In the South African case, the argument that the truth and reconciliation process hadlittle or no impact on society and that reconciliation would have taken place anywayis simply unpersuasive in light of the logical and empirical evidence adduced here.


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Perhaps it is useful to close this article by reiterating the necessary conditions forreconciliation that I believe emerge from the South African case:

• Truth and reconciliation processes should not lose sight of the goal of societaltransformation. Providing justice to victims and perpetrators is important, butlarger political issues are typically at stake.

• The legitimacy of truth and reconciliation agencies is crucial to their influenceand should never be squandered (as the South African TRC did on a couple ofoccasions—e.g., the blanket amnesty granted to the ANC senior leadership).

• Blame almost always can be, and always should be, allocated to all sides inthe conflict. The just war thesis should not be allowed to trump condemnationof gross human rights abuses. The benefits of evenhandedness far outweighthe costs of exposing atrocities by the victors.

• The retributive justice deficit created by granting amnesty to gross humanrights violators can be compensated for with other forms of justice—justice isa multidimensional concept. Truth and reconciliation processes must be mind-ful of the justice needs of citizens and act accordingly.

• Perhaps the single most important policy implication of this discussion is thatsystematic, comparative efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of reconciliationinstitutions and processes must be undertaken.

Although I argue that these factors are valuable to the truth and reconciliationprocess, I am less certain whether each factor is indispensable to the success of theprocess. For instance, in a society in which human rights victimization is wide-spread, perhaps none of the other factors can overcome the unwillingness of victimsto reconcile. Complex interactions may be at work with these variables, and perhapssome conditions exist in which the variables are in conflict with themselves (e.g., atruth process that reveals widespread victimization not theretofore recognized). Andwith complex relationships, one can simply never be certain whether the results froma single country can be generalized to other contexts. I am certain, however, thatadditional research on this issue is necessary and is of high priority.

Finally, is reconciliation possible without truth? Can democracy be consolidatedwithout truth? Answering these questions goes beyond the scope of this study, whichis of course limited to the South African case. But I certainly do not contend that theonly successful road to democratization requires some sort of truth and reconcilia-tion process. Democracy can be imposed by outside force (e.g., Iraq), or authoritar-ianism can collapse of its own weight (e.g., Spain). And losing factions can beentirely destroyed and/or expelled from the country. But some sort of reconciliation—commitment to tolerance, rule of law, and so on—is essential for most democraciesto be consolidated; democratic consolidation cannot take place without at least therudiments of a democratic political culture. And a democratic culture grounded inreconciliation is likely to be more stable than one that is not.

Nor is it always necessary to focus on the truth about the past to create reconcil-iation. I note (Gibson 2004) several processes through which reconciliation is


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enhanced without relying on understandings of the past. And does truth inevitablylead to reconciliation? Certainly not, as it has not for certain segments of the SouthAfrican population.

But if societal change is to take place, some exogenous force must convince ordi-nary people to rethink their views about the contentious past. Perhaps pathwaysother than truth and reconciliation are possible. But those formerly at war with eachother must be convinced to fight their struggle at the ballot box, not on the battle-field. Strategies for creating political tolerance are necessary in all transitionalsystems. The evidence from South Africa is that it is easier to put up with one’s polit-ical foes if one has some understanding of why they acted as they did and how theyhave suffered, and telling the story of the struggle in an evenhanded and human waycontributes to forming this understanding.

REFERENCES

Abel, Richard L. 1995. Politics by other means: Law in the struggle against apartheid, 1980-1994.New York: Routledge Kegan Paul.

Adam, Heribert, and Kanya Adam. 2000. The politics of memory in divided societies. In After the TRC:Reflections on truth and reconciliation in South Africa, edited by Wilmot James and Linda van deVijver, 32-47. Athens: Ohio University Press.

Boraine, Alex. 2000. A country unmasked: Inside South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Buntman, Fran Lisa. 2003. Robben Island and prisoner resistance to apartheid. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

de Kock, Eugene. 1998. A long night’s damage: Working for the apartheid state. Saxonwold, SouthAfrica: Contra Press.

Diamond, Larry. 1999. Developing democracy: Toward consolidation. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press.

Gibson, James L. 2004. Overcoming apartheid: Can truth reconcile a divided nation? New York: RussellSage Foundation.

———. 2005. The truth about truth and reconciliation in South Africa. International Political ScienceReview 26:341-61.

Gibson, James L., and Amanda Gouws. 1997. Support for the rule of law in the emerging South Africandemocracy. International Social Science Journal 152:173-91.

———. 2003. Overcoming intolerance in South Africa: Experiments in democratic persuasion. New York:Cambridge University Press.

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1-truth reconciliation in south af and beyond

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