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Reconciliation and justice essential for SA’s future
Author: Nico Koopman
Published: 15/12/2016

On Friday (16 December 2016), we celebrate Reconciliation Day. In an opinion piece in Cape Argus on Wednesday (14 December 2016), Prof Nico Koopman, Vice-Rector: Social Impact, Transformation and Personnel, writes that reconciliation without justice is cheap reconciliation and offers no future for us as a nation.

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No room for cheap reconciliation

Nico Koopman

On 16 December every year South Africans celebrate Reconciliation Day. On one of the cherished days on our national calendar, we celebrate our quest for reconciliation, social cohesion, social trust, social solidarity, social capital and social peace.

We have seen, however, that the notion of reconciliation is  sometimes met with resistance. Some view reconciliation as a betrayal of justice. This is perhaps the biggest opposition to reconciliation language. It is even argued that leaders like former president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu emphasized reconciliation at the expense of justice. Some even call for an end to reconciliation  and say we should now turn our attention to justice.

In line with his emphasis on reconciliation, Desmond Tutu highlights in his book No future without forgiveness (1999) how crucial forgiveness is for the future we envisage as a nation. I would also like to argue that forgiveness is indispensable for the future, because it paves the way for remorse and contrition, for repentance and confession of guilt, for reconciliation, redress, reparation, restitution, and for restorative justice. Forgiveness opens a safe space where people can open up and confess guilt. It is an act of hospitality, an invitation to repent and change.

Reconciliation becomes cheap where this safe space is not utilized to affect confession and restitution. It becomes cheap where the hospitality and invitation to repent and right the wrongs are rejected. The hospitable and invitational nature of forgiveness shows that it is not possible to talk about forgiveness and reconciliation without talking about justice. There can be no justice without reconciliation, and no reconciliation without justice.

The first 22 years of democracy in South Africa have seen a lot of reconciliation and forgiveness. There was even evidence of confession of guilt. Despite this, the protests on our campuses and in our communities still remind us that not enough redress and reparation, restitution and restoration have flown from forgiveness and reconciliation. The hospitality and invitation of reconciliation and forgiveness still await justice in all its forms.

Reconciliation invites to and anticipates economic justice. For many South Africans their socio-economic situation is even worse than it was during Apartheid. Millions still experience poverty and unemployment. Many lack access to  water, food, clothes, housing, health care, education, safe environments and participation in society, whilst a few have far too much. This type of inequality is totally unacceptable.

Reconciliation waits upon ecological justice. The destruction of the natural environment continues. And sometimes it sounds like greed, and not the liberation of the poor, drives choices like fracking in the Karoo to access shale gas, and the use of nuclear energy.

Reconciliation hungers for sexual and gender justice. It is shocking to see how even people who had suffered under Apartheid now oppress Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-gender, Intersexual, Queer, A-sexual plus citizens. And it remains sad that we do not oppose gender injustice, patriarchy, heterosexism and misogyny with the same passion and commitment that we oppose some other forms of injustice.

Reconciliation provides safe spaces where political justice can flourish. When South Africans celebrate Reconciliation Day in 2016, we do it amidst severe disappointment in our top political leadership. Some of these leaders were champions of the struggle against Apartheid but today they clearly betray the vision of a society where peace and justice reign supreme. They do not stand outside the evils of greed, corruption, tenderpreneurism, state capture, nepotism, abuse of power, violence, mediocrity and underperformance.

We can only celebrate Reconciliation Day legitimately and credibly if these celebrations are accompanied by a fresh commitment to justice in all walks of life, from the most intimate to the most social, public, global and cosmic. We can no longer afford to make reconciliation and forgiveness cheap. Cheap reconciliation, i.e. reconciliation without justice, offers no future to us and our children.

We need to strengthen alliances for reconciliation and justice in all walks of life – political, economic, ecological, public discourse and public opinion-formation, civil society, education, religion, sport, art and culture. The operationalisation of reconciliation and justice asks for nothing less than an activist citizenship.

*Prof Nico Koopman is Vice-Rector for social impact, transformation and personnel at Stellenbosch University.