Source: (1999) Paper presented at the “TRC: Commissioning the Past” conference, organized by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) and the History Workshop (at Wits University). University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 11-14 June 1999. Downloaded 10 March 2004.
With respect to the transition from an apartheid state and society to a post-apartheid state and society, much has been written about South Afric’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and much has been invested in the principles, goals, and outcomes of the TRC’s approach and its actual achievements. Reflecting on the TRC at the end of the 1990s, Simon Stacey pursues two questions in this paper. The first has to with the TRC as an agent of nation-building. Specifically, given what is known about nationalism and nation-building, he looks at whether the TRC can succeed in building a nation in South Africa. The second question has to do with the characteristics of the nation which the TRC is seeking to establish. Here he explores the moral strengths and weaknesses of the TRC’s conception of the nation.
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