AMY

I am reaching the final stages of my project, developing workshop pieces about the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and watching, over and over again, footage from the TRC.

It is heartbreaking.

It is also heartbuilding.

Over and over again I listen to the cry of Nomonde Calata.

Over and over again I hear the phrases "Craddock 4", "Gugulethu 7."

Over and over again I hear the name Amy Biehl.

How do I explain the resonance these sounds have for me? Do I even wish, do I even need, to explain? Perhaps some resonances are best left open and unexplained. Perhaps some things can be felt but not expressed. I suffer no romantic illusions about the TRC and I am full of romantic illusions. Perhaps that is what catharsis is, perhaps that is what empathy is - a set of impressions, pictures and sounds that are stronger and more durable than syllogisms, premises and conclusions.

And what is this connection to Amy Biehl that is newly developed in me? A fellow Fulbrighter, a white woman, an uncompromising, hard-headed academic full of empathy and passion. More and more her name resonates within me, her story resonates within me. It is become a bell forever tolling, a model to work towards, a story to repeat. Over and over.

My heart is full, my mind is full, my eyes are full: with pain, with joy, with ideas, with goals, with tears, with respect, with admiration, with wonder, with the loss of mothers and the giving up of ego. Mongeni, Linda, Amy ... these people who will populate my dreams, and my work, and my future.

Over and over again my heart breaks for the loss that all these people suffered.

Over and over again my heart is rebuilt through the empathy these people built and the work they undertake.

Over and over.

A story, a name, a heart, a bell, a cry, a tear, a mind, a phrase, an impression, a refrain.

Over and over.

FINALLY, A NEW POST

I am currently attending a conference on Human Rights in the Arts, Literature and Social Sciences hosted by Central Michigan University. My brain is fizzing with reactions to the panels I’ve attended today – some of that is positive, inspired fizz and some is enraged fizz. I am going to restrain myself for the moment – for fear of aimless ranting – to writing about the former.

Dr Modhumita Roy of Tufts University presented a fascinating paper discussing truth, the TRC and reconciliation through the lens of Gillian Slovo’s Every Secret Thing. Particularly insightful was her analysis about how the telling and narrative of the TRC shaped the often confessional nature of South African literature post-TRC. She also sketched some of the difficulties around the idea of truth and how it was approached in the TRC and how this approach differed from Slovo’s relationship to notions of truth. Brilliant as the paper was (especially from the point of view of literary criticism) it also, I feel, lacked nuance in its appraisal of the TRC. This is, of course understandable as Dr Roy’s aim is more to situate Slovo’s narrative within context rather than to provide an assessment of the TRC.

Still, it got me thinking. It’s really easy to criticise the TRC. There is really good, rigorous stuff out there doing just that. Yet, so many of these criticisms still include the caveat: but it stopped a bloodbath (or some similar claim). So what we essentially do (and I am guilty of this myself) is recognise that it sort-of worked but spend our time showing what the shortcomings were. We spend far less time looking at IF it really ‘worked ‘ in the sense of averting disaster or if that disaster was a fear that would not have occurred regardless of the TRC. Perhaps more importantly, we spend little time analysing HOW and WHY it worked (and here I’m assuming it did). I have begun to think that this is where the real difficult, interesting scholarship should be coming from with regards the TRC. The criticism is there, it is necessary, it is important. We now need to flesh out the other half of the story with some rigour.

That needs to go into my metaphorical “things I will research at some future point” backpack.

For now, I’m going to focus on my phantom curriculum, try to avoid the Michigan cold, and anticipate more fizzing tomorrow.