Unfinished Business: South Africa, Apartheid and Truth

by Terry Bell, Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza, Dumisa Buhle Ntzebeza

Many people, both in South Africa and abroad, hoped that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in 1996 would uncover the hidden history of South Africa’s apartheid past. It is a widely propagated myth that it did so. In fact, most of the thirty-three-year mandate of the Commission was ignored. Behind a facade of time constraints and managerial short comings, some intended investigations never proceeded, others were bungled. Most importantly, no serious examination was made of the system that gave rise to some of the most horrific, racist social engineering of modern times.

Unfinished Business pulls back the curtain on the ‘political miracle’ of the new South Africa to reveal some of the real stories in its how the Afrikaner Broederbond operated, the murderous activities of the South African security forces in Transkei, the citation of De Klerk as a defendant in a civil action for murder at exactly the moment he was traveling to Oslo to collect a Nobel peace prize, and many others.

Seeking to probe where the Commission failed or feared to tread, this books asks how long South Africa’s miracle might be expected to last.

Genres: South Africa

352 pages, Hardcover

First published September 4, 2003

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfinished Business is a discussion of the various issues and events of the Apartheid era in South Africa missed, underrepresented, or forgotten by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). It covers areas as far reaching as banishments, the infiltration of student and anti-apartheid organizations, and the personal tribulations of one of the authors - Dumisa Ntsebeza.

My issues with this book are several-fold. Firstly, the writing style is dry, a bit repetitive, and lacks flow. The book is slow and plodding at times, and has difficulty maintaining a logical and thematic focus within chapters. In this, it is difficult to read, especially considering the author is supposed to be a journalist/writer.

The book also seems to have trouble in it is not sure where it wants to go. It often mentions issues or events that it believes should have been covered at the TRC, but buries them amidst chapters on an entirely different topic. To this end, the book feels to be a failure, as it never makes a compelling, and more pressingly cohesive, argument on what exactly it feels the TRC should have covered that it did not and why. This becomes a glaring oversight when once considers the TRC report is thousands of pages, and this book maxes out at about 300. To paint the Commission with such a uncomplimentary brush - especially when one of the authors was involved with it - seems unfair without considerable explanation. Returning to the issue of focus, the reader eventually comes to understand that the authors feels the architects of apartheid should have been held to greater task, this is all well and good, but hardly a shocking conclusion. One wonders what they hoped to accomplish here. Certainly, the book has no legal ability to force this issue, but neither did the TRC, again asking what they expected the commission to do. This is especially true when one actually reads the TRC report and realize that it hopes to primarily focus on the individual acts and trevails of the apartheid era as opposed to widespread condemnation of the system of apartheid and its leadership - a process that had been well covered and indeed, without which the system would have never been overcome in the first place. That the authors want more to be done to the former leadership of the nation, their questions and exasperation should be aimed at the current ANC government, not a non-judicial commission of inquiry with an already dizzying mandate to fulfill.

More concerning is the lack of simple commitment to unbiased discussion of the unfinished business of the apartheid era. The book covers the struggle against the system with the same uncomplicated "good vs. evil" terms as the apartheid system painted their struggle against the resistance movements. At best it casts significant doubt on the intellectual honesty of the book, and at worst enjoins the reader to invalidate much of the books content due to the avowed, but unspoken bias it carries. Perhaps the most glaring moment of the book is when the authors indignantly discuss the humiliation and injustice heaped on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela when she has been banished. There is not even the most scant acknowledgement of her supposed involvement in the Mandela United Football Club allegations laid out by the TRC and which earned Ms. Madikezela-Mandela considerable condemnation from fellow TRC member Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. The fact that there are no discussion or judgment passed of the trespasses of the ANC, APLA, or other resistance movements gives credence to those who would want to invalidate the entire content of the book. To this end, the authors negate much of the weight that they attempt to give their text except to those predisposed to regard it as unqualified truth.

Overall, this book is not a bad book. The content is somewhat worthwhile and bears note. The fact that the abuses by both sides have been covered in greater depth and with greater honestly in other texts, makes it difficult to recommend it on anything other than its price and availability.

[iamtshepo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revealing a sad, tragic and painful history, I needed a dictionary close by ....