Facing The Truth
Prospectus and Outline
Facing the Truth is
an attempt to take the TRC faith communities hearings to
local levels through promoting action, reflection and debate
on the issues raised in the hearings and in RICSA’s
Report, prepared for the Commission. Although of a high
academic standard, the chapters are not aimed at academics
but leaders (clergy and lay) of churches and other faith
communities. The book was published in May 1999 by David
Philip Publishers. Its editors are James Cochrane, John de
Gruchy and Stephen Martin, all of RICSA.
The book begins with RICSA’s Report on faith communities and apartheid. This forms the point of departure and point of reference for the chapters. In a sense, the Report gives the self-understanding of the churches, based as it is on their submissions and testimonies, in a nutshell. The rest of the book attempts to "crack" that nutshell open through attending to the silences and spaces not only in the submissions, but in the very way that the hearings were organised and presented as event in the life of the faith communities and the broader South African community. The chapters also provide ways that debate about the hearings and the submissions made can be carried in to a local level, and reconciliatory practices (including those noted in the Report) promoted.
The book ends with extracts from some of the submissions to the TRC from faith communities. A more comprehensive database of submissions will be provided by RICSA in 1999.
Outline
A. Introduction. Here the aims of the book are stated, concepts clarified and historical issues introduced.
B. RICSA’s TRC Report.
C. Reflections
- Going Public, Building Covenants: Linking the TRC to Theology and the Church (William Johnson Everett, Andover-Newton Theological School)
- Redefining the Perpetrator and Beneficiary (Russel Botman, University of the Western Cape)
- Right Wing Christian Groups (Roger Arendse, University of the Western Cape)
- The TRC: A Black Theological Critique (Tinyiko Maluleke, School of Theology, University of Natal, PMB)
- Redefining Resistance: The AICs and the TRC (Robin Petersen, University of the Western Cape)
- From Apocalypse To Creation: New Terms For Memory (David Chidester, University of Cape Town)
- The Question (of) Remains: Remembering Shoah, Forgetting Reconciliation (Oren Stier & Heidi Grunebaum-Ralph, University of Cape Town)
D. Afterword: Facing truth (Charity Majiza, South African Council of Churches)
E. Appendix: Extracts from submissions