Johannesburg Crime Stories

A few nights ago I thought I heard a gunshot
I read in the newspaper the next day
that the sound I had heard was indeed a gun
that was fired during a car-hijacking
the driver died face down near to his home
the newspapers further revealed
weeks later
that the man who died face down on the tar
was ripping a company off for millions
and it was his stolen wealth that had enabled him
to buy the new car
that was so attractive to a criminal
that it was worth killing for
the story went on to say
that the car had been recovered in the suburbs
on the same day as the fraudulent man’s funeral
the car
which was now second-hand
was found in the possession of another businessman
who really wanted a new car with all the trimmings
but could not afford it
because his child needed private schooling
which was essential to prevent his son
from mixing with unsavoury elements
the man is now being charged with buying stolen goods
and his wife is appalled by the crime wave
and how the innocent seem to always come off second
what is more
is that yesterday
she read
that a gorilla was shot in a bizarre shoot-out
with a criminal at the zoo
so directly after attending her husband’s hearing
she wrote to the newspaper
calling for the police to get tougher on crime
strangely the hijacker’s wife read the letter
she showed it to a neighbour
who strongly agreed with the views expressed
because recently seven houses had been robbed
in their street

Published by Brandon Hamber
New Contrast, 1999, No. 108, Volume 27, Number 4, p. 72-73

South Africa: Freedom fighter with a heart of gold laid to rest

 Maggie Friedman and Brandon Hamber remember Sylvia Dlomo-Jele, The Sowetan

Johannesburg — Sylvia Dlomo-Jele was a symbol of strength and courage for bereaved family of victims who suffered under apartheid. She passed away on Saturday March 13.

Photo by Vibhu / Unsplash

Sylvia was a founder member of the Khulumani Support Group, which gave courage to her fellow bereaved victims to speak out and demand the truth about the past.

The members of Khulumani supported one another during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Khulumani in part owes its growth to Sylvia's commitment and her ability to network with the mothers of Soweto.

Sylvia knew how to comfort and she led people with spirituality and dedication. Her strong voice often intervened in song when meetings threatened to get over-emotional.

In our view Sylvia fundamentally changed the process of the TRC. Many people do not know that the first draft of the TRC legislation argued for the hearings to be held behind closed doors. On hearing this, Sylvia went door-to-door among people she knew in Soweto and asked them to come to a press conference at the Centre for the Study of Violence.

This non-government organisation and others issued a statement condemning the Government's proposals that amnesty applications be heard in secret.

At the meeting Sylvia spoke out strongly and emotionally. The presence of the victims Sylvia had personally helped get to the press conference gave the meeting a power it would not otherwise have had. However, Sylvia did not stop there.

Together with Maggie Friedman and the late Chris Ribiero she then flew to Cape Town in February 1995 to take up the issue directly with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Justice.

Sylvia's words at that meeting were unforgettable: "Now I hear that everything is going to be behind closed doors. I am pleading as a mother. I want to know who killed my son. I cannot forgive those people who killed my son without speaking to them." She spoke straight from her heart, as she always did. We have no doubt that her input significantly helped to get the secrecy clause dropped.

All the hearings of the TRC are now in public - something most of us take for granted. However, we should not forget that Sylvia too was a survivor of a terrible past. She was one of the first people to testify before the TRC.

She related how her son Sicelo Dlomo was found in 1988 shot dead in an open field in Soweto. His killers were unknown. Sylvia knew that the answer to the riddle of Sicelo's death was not simple but by the time of the amnesty hearing this year she had discovered that her son's murderers were his young comrades, who she had welcomed into her own home. We believe that the stress of this discovery was finally too much for her. In this regard Sylvia continues to symbolise the plight of many bereaved victims who have been left with nothing but unfinished truths about the past.

Her death reminds us that it is people like Sylvia who ultimately paid the price for the democracy we now enjoy. To us she embodied the meaning of Khulumani. She was able to make the world understand the pain of bereaved mothers and their anger against those who go unpunished.

To us she was a mother, a friend, a teacher and freedom-fighter. Her wisdom is immortalised on video saying: "When you are in the fields alone you are not heard but when you are in a group you are heard easily." The Khulumani Support Group will live on long after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Sylvia Dlomo-Jele is survived by her son Maxwell "Vicky" Dlomo and her supportive husband, Wilson Mthumzi Jele, two sisters and five grandchildren.

Her funeral will be on Saturday at 9h00 at St Matthew's Anglican Church in Emndeni South, Soweto. She will be buried at the Avalon Cemetery.

Published by Maggie Friedman and Brandon Hamber, The Sowetan, 18 March 1999.

Maggie Friedman is from the Khulumani Support Group and Brandon Hamber is from the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Hamber, B. (1999). Have no doubt it is fear in the land: An exploration of the continuing cycles of violence in South Africa. Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie, Jg. 7, Nr. 1+2, pp. 113-128 [Download]

Past Imperfect: Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland and Societies in Transition

Past Imperfect: Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland and Societies in Transition, edited by Brandon Hamber is now available free online.

Past Imperfect was published in 1998 by INCORE/UU: Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland. ISBN 0 9533305-4-0.

This publication brings together the papers presented at the 'Dealing with the Past: Reconciliation Processes and Peace Building' Conference and draws on the ideas of the participants to further the debate about dealing with, or perhaps not dealing with, the past in Northern Ireland. Includes chapters on South Africa, Northern Ireland and Guatamala.

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Contributors

Sir Kenneth Bloomfield was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (of which he is a governor) and St Peter's College, Oxford, where he read Modern History. He was appointed Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service on 1 December 1984. In that capacity he was the most senior advisor to successive Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and other Ministers on a wide range of issues. He retired from his position in April 1991. Sir Kenneth received a Knighthood in the 1987 Birthday Honours List. In December 1997 he was asked by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to head the Northern Ireland Victims Commission. His report entitled We Will Remember Them was published in April 1998.

Mary Burton was born Marie Macdiarmid Ingouville in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She moved to South Africa in 1961 when she married a South African, and became a South African citizen in 1994. She has been active in human rights organisations since 1965, including the women's anti-apartheid organisation, the Black Sash. Mary Burton served as national president of the Black Sash from 1986 to 1990 and is now a trustee. She was Provincial Electoral Officer for the Western Cape Province in the 1994 general elections in South Africa. In 1995 she was appointed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and served on its Human Rights Violations Committee.

Mario Roberto Cabrera holds a Masters of Public Health and is also a physician. Presently he is the Psychological Restoration Area Co-ordinator for the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala working on The Recovery of the Historic Memory Project (REMHI) in Guatemala. Roberto Cabrera works on designing, planning and implementing the psychosocial component of the project.

Marie Smyth currently co-ordinates the Cost of the Troubles Study, an investigation on the experiences and effects of Northern Ireland's Troubles on the population of Northern Ireland. She also teaches at Smith College in Massachusetts. She has taught for ten years at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, and has researched and written on issues such as segregation, mixed marriage, women's roles, life in enclaves in Northern Ireland, and the social, economic and political effects of violence and low intensity conflict. She has written widely on the psychological and physical cost of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Brandon Hamber is a Clinical Psychologist and works at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in Johannesburg, South Africa. He co-ordinates the Transition and Reconciliation Unit at the Centre and has co-ordinated the Centre's work focusing on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission over the last three years. He is a visiting fellow (1997/1998) at the Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity (INCORE) in Northern Ireland, where he holds the Tip O'Neill Fellowship. His work at INCORE focuses on countries coming out of violence and strategies for dealing with the past.

Appendices
1. Summary of the recommendations of the Bloomfield Report
2. Dealing with the past in Northern Ireland: questions and issues to consider
3. Dealing with the past reading material
4. Dealing with the past Internet resources

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A Review of Islamic Fundamentalism: Myths and realities

A Review of Islamic Fundamentalism: Myths and realities by Ahmed S Moussali (ed). Reading, UK: Ithaca Press. 1998, 348pp. Index. Hb. ISBN 0-86372-232-6.

"Islam has been seen to be well suited to play the role of the bad guy after the Cold War, for it is large, frightening and anti-Western and thrives on poverty and anger. It is spread over vast tracts of the world, and so the countries of Islam could be shown on TV as large maps of green, as the communist countries used to appear in red." (p.6)

The fetishism of the West, and particularly the United States, with the creation of a new enemy after the end of the Cold War is an increasing point for international concern. On one hand there is a growing awareness in the international community of the fabrication of an enemy for a plethora of self-serving reasons. Yet, on the other, the overwhelming ignorance of the Muslim world, and the enormous publicity of extremist terror attacks, has fanned fears of a new Islamic "green threat". Ahmad Moussali and his fellow contributors set out to rationally and systematically challenge the myths that perpetuate these anxieties.

The book begins with several complex theoretical chapters that cover a number of key debates. These range from the irrelevancy of Western social science in understanding the Muslim world, to the philosophical and political underpinnings of the views and ideologies of differing Islamic traditions on religion, state, democracy and human rights. These intricate theoretical chapters will be helpful to researchers with little understanding of Islamic fundamentalism, as well as those with a larger base of knowledge. They demonstrate that although any understanding of Islamic fundamentalism cannot be easily conflated into the framework of Western thought, fundamentalism is "not beyond intellectual, economic, political and cultural analyses" (p.25). This is critical, as the remaining chapters all converge on the need to understand Islamic fundamentalism and its growth contextuality.

The instructive and in-depth case studies of Algeria, Lebanon, the Occupied Territories, Saudi Arabia and Egypt clearly show that the resurgence of Islamic activism cannot be divorced from the local socio-economic and political context. The case studies convincingly demonstrate that most major fundamentalist groups, notwithstanding a few widely publicised groups that are engaged in exclusivist uncompromising revolutions, are not necessarily or inherently juxtaposed in thought and action to democracy and pluralism. The detailed and contextual analyses in the case studies implicitly challenges the Western myths (and consequent fears) of an all-encompassing hegemonic and extremist Islamic movement.

The book will be instructive to those not familiar with the theoretical foundations and historical context of Islamic conviction in the contemporary world. However, the book does not extensively explain, and that is not its purpose, why the West has chosen fundamentalism as its new enemy. Rather Ahmad Moussalli and his fellow contributors choose to demystify Islamic fundamentalism through developing a nuanced and contextual understanding. A refined analysis of this type is critical in moving Western conflict resolution practitioners, and the public, away from the reductionist view that the biggest threat to peace is the clash of irreconcilable civilisations rather than the socio-economic problems, and the resultant opposition, created by rapid economic liberalisation.

Published by Brandon Hamber in the Ethnic Conflict Research Digest, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1999.

What is this thing called Reconciliation?

Brandon Hamber & Hugo van der Merwe

Shortly after PW Botha was yet again bustled into the courtroom in George the phone at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation began ringing journalists wanting to get another angle on the story. Predictably, as with so many Truth Commission controversies before, the interviews tend to end with the same question, "Do you think the TRC has damaged or furthered the reconciliation process by its actions?" A question that simply does not have a short answer.

One of the reasons for this is that reconciliation is a complex and relatively new term for South Africans, and indeed for the world. Furthermore, despite the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) popularising the term, the TRC has not provided the country with a clear definition of what it really means. A uniform and populist understanding of reconciliation still appears to be a long way off. The result is that very seldom is anyone in South Africa talking about the same thing when they refer to reconciliation. Equally so, the final outcome of a so-called reconciled South Africa means different things to different people.

On the whole, most people would probably agree that reconciliation embodies some positive connotations about coming together and healing past conflicts. Most people would probably also say that they are in favour of reconciliation, but competing understandings of the term are seldom debated or spelled-out clearly. Given this lack of clarity we have attempted to differentiate some of the ways that people talk about reconciliation in South Africa. We have isolated five ways in which people have defined reconciliation, albeit conscious or not.

Photo by Tommy Fogelberg / Unsplash

The first of these is what can be termed the non-racial ideology of reconciliation. The non-racial ideology essentially defines reconciliation as dissolving the racial identities arising from the policies of the past. Within this model people with racist attitudes (particularly whites) are seen to largely carry the blame for past divisions and conflicts. They are urged to acknowledge their past so that they can become part of a new society. This ideology implores the TRC to advocate a vision of a new "rainbow" society and to convert people through confession and acknowledgement into non-racial citizens within a harmoniously integrated social setting.

The second understanding of reconciliation is an ideology based on an intercommunal understanding. This model sees the divisions of the past as fundamentally a consequence of the fact that South Africa is made up of separate communities with different cultures and histories. The process of reconciliation is then about bridging the divides of the past. This ideology highlights the need for improved communication and better understanding between groups, thus leading to greater co-operation and co-existence at the individual and political level. This ideology does not necessarily see a place for allocating (or admitting) guilt or changing one's identity; if anything identities are often reified. From this perspective the TRC is considered to be a facilitator that can improve communication and mutual tolerance of diversity.

A third notion is the strong religious ideology of reconciliation. This ideology is based on the teachings of various churches and places emphasis on honesty and forgiveness. This ideological position emphasises the re-discovering of a new conscience of individuals and society through moral reflection, repentance, confession and rebirth. Only by re-awakening the conscience can we rediscover our common humanity. The TRC is seen as a body that can confront people with the evil of their deeds and, in essence, challenge them to repent and not repeat atrocities. This perspective runs the risk of mistakenly equating forgiveness of past enemies with reconciliation.

Another ideology is the human rights approach. From this perspective, reconciliation is seen as a process which can only be achieved by regulating social interaction through the rule of law and preventing certain forms of violations of rights from happening again. To promote reconciliation through this ideology one has to condemn inappropriate behaviour, irrespective of who is responsible, and discourage people from repeating these offences through setting up appropriate institutional and social safeguards. The TRC's role is seen as a body that can build a human rights culture through bringing atrocities to public awareness. The TRC is also seen as a body that can strengthen human rights in the country by making recommendations regarding the prevention of future abuses.

A final ideology is the understanding of reconciliation as a form of community building. Reconciliation at this level is generally concerned with individual relationships rather than with broad and abstract values of co-existence and national political tolerance. This ideology would see the conflicts of the past as having broken down the network of interdependent relationships in communities. Reconciliation in this context requires the clearing up of mistrust between previously conflicting parties and rebuilding personal bonds at the local level. The TRC should, according to this framework, facilitate a public airing of allegations and suspicions and then help facilitate the reconstruction of interpersonal relationships through creating space for direct interventions like conflict resolution initiatives.

These five ideologies of reconciliation can and often do co-exist quite comfortably. However, the ideology one adopts and there are probably many more has during the process of the TRC been at the core of conflict between different groups.

For example, the TRC's, and the ANC's, dominant approach to reconciliation has placed an emphasis on the need for nation-building through non-racialism. This has emphasised acknowledgement of past atrocities. Although well meaning, this ideology has resulted in a vision of unity that has, at times, denied the expression of internal conflicts. The expression of conflict is often seen as a betrayal rather than a challenge to find common ground. A good example of this was the initial negativity from the TRC toward the families who challenged the TRC's amnesty provision in the Constitutional Court.

The National Party, on the other hand, has generally adopted an intercommunal notion of reconciliation. Using this understanding they have emphasised mutual co-existence, but without placing prominence on the acknowledgement of past wrongdoing. Their definition of reconciliation has, at times, come dangerously close to slipping back into the old policies of separation. Consequently any push from the TRC or others toward a more non-racial model has been experienced as a "witch-hunt", as the non-racial model holds whites accountable for most past abuses. This approach, at least to the NP, is seen as contradictory to its notion of reconciliation and has prompted them to say the TRC is biased against them.

The TRC, particularly in its initial phases, also added a strong religious overtone to their non-racial emphasis. This resulted in the TRC highlighting forgiveness and truth-telling above all else. This approach has been criticised for being too lenient on perpetrators. The TRC has, according to these criticisms, bent over backwards to get the perpetrators to come forward and confess only then to let them off. Several non-government organisations (NGOs) and political parties (the PAC particularly) would have viewed the extension of the amnesty cut-off dates in this light.

Non-government organisations (NGOs) and victim groups have tended to opt for a more community building and human rights approach to the TRC. They have been critical of the TRC for failing to address reconciliation at the community level where the legacy of past conflicts still leaves many communities internally divided despite the TRC holding hearings and visiting the area. These criticisms are valid in that follow-up services to meet the needs of victims have not always been forthcoming. The TRC has countered these criticisms by saying that the reconciliation model they were mandated to carry-out did not stress, at least in the legislation, victim-support and conflict resolution directly.

The reality is, in fact, that the TRC has adopted most of the ideologies of reconciliation outlined above at different times. The non-racial notion of reconciliation has been, perhaps rightly, the most consistent on the agenda of the TRC. However, the sporadic dominance of, alternatively a more human rights driven approach and the religious approach have also been present. In addition, some Commissioners have opted for the less ambitious notion of reconciliation in which co-existence is given prime importance. The need for acknowledgement has, however, always been accentuated to a greater degree than the more conservative approach to co-existence adopted by the NP.

Despite these perhaps inevitable inconsistencies, the TRC does seem to have adopted a specific pattern toward the reconciliation process. They have generally first emphasised the need for acknowledgement, repentance and apology before adopting any legal or human rights strategy. In the absence of a holistic definition of reconciliation, mixed messages have come out of the TRC at times. This has given certain individuals too much space to manipulate the TRC process.

The charges brought against PW Botha for not obeying his subpoena is a case in point. Initially the TRC adopted a soft approach embodied by the religious and non-racial ideologies to reconciliation. They requested his co-operation with hopeful anticipation of his acknowledgement and an apology for atrocities committed under his leadership. Although this is a commendable example of tolerance for a man who headed a government that undoubtedly committed a range of abuses, it simply provided him with the space to avoid interacting with the TRC.

Then when the TRC, correctly in our opinion, adopted a more legal or human rights approach through court action against PW Botha he used the inconsistency of their approach as a weapon against them. As the TRC has seldom used the legal route and has largely adopted the religious and non-racial ideological approaches toward alleged perpetrators, PW Botha was given ammunition to "call foul" saying that the TRC was biased and specifically targeting him. Even now it is not clear as to whether the TRC is going through with the court battle for the purpose of extracting an expression of remorse and an apology from him or whether they plan to use the court process to unequivocally demonstrate the need for accountability. Either way the TRC remains in a difficult predicament. It appears that PW Botha will never admit to any wrongdoing and equally so it will be difficult to demonstrate the need for accountability through his case when so many perpetrators have been granted amnesty before him and walk free in our society.

Many of these difficulties are not the fault of the TRC alone. The TRC was handed a difficult task forged on compromise and any legislated process could never fully anticipate the "subtleties" of these competing notions of reconciliation. However, the real danger is that, as the TRC moves to closure, we continue to assume that all South Africans share a common understanding of the term. Consensus on a clearer definition than what has been used over the last few years will serve to avert conflict over who is, or who is not, committed to reconciliation. This will be critical once the TRC has ended and its hegemonic ideologies of reconciliation are no longer present.

A shift in emphasis will also be necessary in which reconciliation work is moved out of the realm of the strictly political. An approach that takes the interests of local communities more seriously will prove to be critical. This will address victims' criticisms that the TRC has been about a political rather than victim-centered process and that the TRC's approach to reconciliation has favoured perpetrators.

In addition, we will have to confront some of the more difficult questions raised by the reconciliation process South Africa adopted through the TRC. Over the last three years trials against alleged perpetrators have largely been seen as counter to the non-racial and religious ideologies implicit in the TRC. However, with the end of the TRC in sight, we have to ask the question of whether bringing charges against alleged perpetrators who did not apply for amnesty should be seen in this way. It could be argued that such trials are a component of a more holistic approach to reconciliation in which a strong human rights framework is added to the non-racial and religious ideologies of reconciliation that the TRC has championed. The human rights approach of trying the guilty is internationally accepted as a method for re-establishing the rule of law which the granting of amnesty has invariably undermined.

Perhaps it is only additional prosecutions, a greater emphasis on facilitating local community reconciliation and the delivery of reparations to victims that will serve to help integrate and complete South Africa's complex reconciliation puzzle.

Published by Brandon Hamber  and Hugo van der Merwe in Reconciliation in Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1998.

Brandon Hamber is a Research Associate and Consultant and Hugo van der Merwe a Project Manager in the Transition and Reconciliation Programme at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.