Truth Commission Member Recalls, Confronts Apartheid

South Africa must confront traumatic memories of apartheid to move towards healing, a former member of the nation's Truth and Reconciliation Commission argued yesterday at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela advocated continuing ambitious efforts to acknowledge past atrocities at this year's Rama Mehta Lecture, as Sheila Sisulu, South Africa's ambassador to the U.S., listened from the audience.

The speech, which coincided with the fortieth anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, in which the military killed 67 South Africans during peaceful protests, was particularly emotional at times, with members of the audience wiping tears from their eyes at times.

Godobo-Madikizela said that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was formed after in 1996 after the end of apartheid, has provided a forum for both black and whites to address its living legacy. She mixed personal stories of growing up in a divided South Africa with accounts of her emotions while serving as a member of the 10-person commission.

The traumatic nature of the memories made establishing a definite account of events especially difficult for the commission, which was made up of both blacks and whites. Often, Godobo-Madikizela found her recollection of events challenged by the versions given in front of the commission by blacks and whites alike.

Godobo-Madikizela moved beyond apartheid to discuss South Africa's most pressing political issues today, including the rising rate of crime and poverty. She said that positive action must be taken in addition to discussion of the past to compensate those who suffered under apartheid.

"There must be reconciliation with not only the perpetrators, but also the benefactors of apartheid," she said.

Godobo-Madikizela's lecture, which focused on the ultimate complexity of creating a state in which blacks and whites can live together peacefully, raised issues that apply to nations beyond South Africa, said Elliot G. Mishler, professor of social psychology at Harvard Medical School.

"These are very complex problems that are not unique to South Africa. Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and countless other nations are attempting to move beyond periods of state sponsored violence," said Mishler, who specializes in the psychology of trauma survivors.

While the efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have come under fire for unnecessarily raising a violent past, Godobo-Madikizela defended the effort.

"If memory is kept alive to free ourselves from the burden of hatred, then it has the power to heal," she said.