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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Ná die Waarheids- en Versoeningskommissie: uitdagings aan die historikus in 'n demokratiese Suid-Afrika
Author:Du Pisani, Kobus
Year:2007
Periodical:Tydskrif vir geesteswetenskappe
Volume:47
Issue:1
Pages:1-12
Language:Afrikaans
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:truth and reconciliation commissions
historiography
Abstract:The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was mandated to establish 'the truth' about the causes, nature and extent of gross violations of human rights in the country between 1960 and 1994. This article assesses the significance of the TRC for historians and the writing of history in South Africa. The first section focuses on the task of assessing the TRC evidence and providing guidelines on how this evidence may be used in the quest for historic truth. The strengths and weaknesses of the TRC evidence are pointed out. A discussion of the role of the TRC in narrowing the gap between academic and public history follows in the second section. The third section deals with the significance of the TRC in the reinterpretation of a period in South African history. Two approaches in the reinterpretation of the past, a conventional 'history of the past' and a genealogical 'history of the present', are compared. Options for Afrikaans historians in dealing with the facts revealed by the TRC, ranging from traditional ethnocentric approaches to more accommodating approaches, are reflected upon in the final section of the article. The conclusion is that despite its shortcomings, the contributions of the TRC towards producing a new archive of previously repressed histories, from which a fuller truth about the past could emerge, cannot be denied. Notes, ref., sum. in English and Afrikaans, text in Afrikaans. [Journal abstract, edited]
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