Special Report Transcript Episode 85, Section 2, Time 04:56

Right, let’s get stuck into that. Dr Mandela, we talked about perceptions now, but Mr. Mzizi is bringing up something else – the whole question of reopening of old wounds. He just said the healing had begun but now the Truth Commission has scratched open the wounds. Do you agree with that perception? // No I think it is a matter of interpretation where you are. I don’t think that the Truth Commission has opened up any wounds; I don’t think that the healing had begun in this country. I think that if people say that they are creating a myth, a façade, it’s not true. But I think that we have to actually evaluate the effectiveness of the Truth Commission in terms of what it was intended to do in the beginning. I firmly believe that if the intention of the Truth Commission was actually to unearth the scenes of the past so that people should actually have a sense of the truth ... of sort of a much more objective - I know that it is a highly subjective process - then we have to go through with it. Whether the process then leads us to reconciliation is another issue altogether. // Are you saying we had enough truth or we didn’t have enough truth? // Well I think that some truth has come out; whether we have had enough truth I doubt that. But I think that some glimmer of light has come out in terms of what has happened to certain people. Not the whole truth has come out. // Do you think there is a correlation between the two in the sense that if you have x amount of truth, that will buy you reconciliation? // No, I don’t think so. I think for me reconciliation is much more than just the truth. Even if we had had the whole truth I don’t think that still there would be reconciliation. Reconciliation is a personal journey, it’s an internal thing and people interpret it in terms of how it affects their lives. It’s not just about people coming and say well I committed that and that’s the end. You must understand that a whole group of people were subjected to severe oppression. There were others that were worse victims than others, but it’s a whole group of people. And if there’s going to be reconciliation you have to address all those inequities not just part of the inequities and the social injustices that were committed. // Alright we are going to come back to the heart of what is reconciliation.

Notes: Max du Preez; Maki Mandela (Human Resources Spoornet)

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