South African writer reflects on literature of reconciliation

Few books have been written by South African novelists that were inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, according to playwright and author Zakes Mda. That, he says, may seem uncharacteristic, considering that writers often harvest their material from society.

Mda, the 2008 Marsha Lilien Gladstein Visiting Professor in Human Rights, made his remarks during the Gladstein Distinguished Lecture on Human Rights in Konover Auditorium on Oct. 29. The lectureship is administered by the Human Rights Institute.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established to deal with the human rights violations that occurred between 1960 and 1994 during the apartheid era in South Africa.

The Commission sought to affirm the dignity of the victims of apartheid and make recommendations about their rehabilitation. It also granted amnesty to the perpetrators of those violations, provided that they confessed all they knew to the satisfaction of the commissioners.

The process was intended to bring about reconciliation and promote the transition to democracy in South Africa.

The TRC was an innovative alternative to the approach epitomized by the Nuremberg Trials and prosecutions of former Nazis after World War II, and has since been implemented in several other countries.

“One would have imagined that as a major event in South African life, the TRC would have generated a considerable amount of imaginative fiction from us – black writers,” said Mda, a South African who currently teaches at Ohio University.

Dearth of fiction
But for black people in South Africa there was nothing new in these revelations, he said.

“Throughout the years we all knew that these atrocities were happening because they were happening to us. The fiction that we produced during the days of apartheid was, in fact, about those human rights violations. The atrocities were a revelation only to our white compatriots, those who had bought into state propaganda that any talk of South African security forces — the very Afrikaners who had been grounded in Calvinistic Christian teachings — committing atrocities was nothing but Communist propaganda.”

Publishers have played a significant role in the dearth of fiction surrounding the TRC, Mda said, noting that it’s difficult for new writers to publish books that are set during the apartheid era.

“It has nothing to do with political censorship,” he said. “It’s a commercial decision. Publishers wrongly believe that stories about apartheid don’t sell. People don’t want to read about the past.”

Dramatic representations
Theater, however, goes through different gate-keeping processes, he said.