Reflecting on Achievements, Celebrating Failures: A Response to Kay Schaffer: The Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness Conference Reflecting on Ten Years of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission‪.‬

1. The purpose of this response is not to provide another (an other) (objective) account of the events of 23 to 27 November 2006 in certain of the lecture theatres of the Kramer Building at the University of Cape Town. With/without the benefit of distance, I see this response primarily intended as a supplementation of the account of the conference given by Professor Schaffer in her conference report.[1] I hope that my disagreement (dis-agreement) with Schaffer on the way in which she presents the conference in her report will be taken in the spirit of what is at stake: reconciliation, truth, transition, South Africa. Allow me to emphasise that I do not wish in any way to deny the importance of this conference. The very fact that it has generated a flurry of dialogue and debate on an international scale testifies to its importance as a singular and irreplaceable event. My own contribution to this debate should also indicate that I consider the conference in this light. This being said, my attention will be directed at Schaffer's text about this event which will inevitably require me to refer to my own experience of the events of the conference. 2. Schaffer commences her report with a description of the two 'engines' that propelled the Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness conference: 'one aimed to assemble an interdisciplinary group of scholars from over 40 countries to reflect upon the achievements of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (henceforth TRC); the other attempted to recommit the nation to a psychotherapeutic process of reconciliation, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as an exemplar, mentor and guide'. This opening phrase appears to have been constructed from the cover page of the conference program on which the organisers indicated the title and formulated the general themes of the conference. The original read as follows: 'Reflecting on Ten Years of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A conference that brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from across the globe to reflect on the work of the TRC in South Africa and its continuing impact worldwide. Celebrating Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Life of Peaceful Justice'. Schaffer's (re)construction of the motivating forces of the conference occurs with two modifications of the original text from which it is constructed. First, she translates the original phrase 'to reflect on the work' into the phrase 'to reflect upon the achievements'. Second, she leaves the word 'celebrating' out of her description and chooses instead to 'centralise' the role of the Archbishop 'as an exemplar, mentor and guide' in what she conceives of (rightly or wrongly) as the psychotherapeutic, complementary 'engine' of the conference.