Dealing with the uneasy past of our new home

In 1994, South Africa officially dismantled Apartheid (meaning “apartness”), shedding its racist past and granting political rights to all its citizens. This result was not achieved, however, without decades of violence and protest.

Attempting to deal with the horrors of the Apartheid era, leaders of South Africa established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its purpose was to uncover human rights crimes, to provide reparations for victims, and to allow victimizers to earn amnesty. This process helped those who had suffered to be recognized and the guilty to find forgiveness.

During the years of the Commission’s work, which took place in Cape Town, 22,000 people testified of crimes against them or their families and 8,000 people were granted amnesty. As a result of this public purging, South Africans have been granted a measure of peace with their past and hope for living together as a “rainbow nation” of many races.