ANNELIES VERDOOLAEGE

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been a turning point in South African history. By listening to the experiences of apartheid victims and by considering applications for amnesty by apartheid perpetrators, the TRC embodied the entire transition to democracy. This article is based on a discursive analysis of the language created at the Human Rights Violations (HRV) hearings – the victim hearings – of the TRC. This was a language in which reconciliation and forgiveness were prominently present, hence the label ‘reconciliation discourse’. One of the key features of this reconciliation discourse was that the concept of reconciliation was interpreted in a highly inclusive way, leading to a set of multidimensional definitions. By referring to a number of testifying victims, I will demonstrate the multilayered interpretation of the term reconciliation at the HRV hearings. The testifiers were allowed to frame reconciliation in different ways, be it religious, political, cultural, or by referring to national unity. Additionally, victims were also allowed to be highly critical about reconciliation or to only conditionally accept the notion of reconciliation. My central argument is that the TRC reconciliation discourse strengthened the willingness t