Abstract

Can South Africa Face Its Past?

This article examines the effect of reconciliation of blacks and whites in South Africa. Truth and reconciliation are, rather, the poles of a dialectic between which ordinary South Africans swing as they go about their daily lives-in the workplace, watching television, making money. African National Congress guerrillas who are now officers in the South African National Defense Force will talk about the camaraderie they are discovering, with their former enemies, over beer, braaivleis and talk of weaponry. This is reconciliation forged through newly found common class allegiances and professional interests. On the airwaves, there are now countless tacky TV soaps offering images of interracial business, marriages and neighborhoods; more important, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, in a series called Unbanned, is currently showing documentaries that were banned under apartheid. The truth process has begun.