Historical Catharsis and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

This chapter concentrates on the idea of "catharsis," a notion that has been widely associated with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) but has so far eluded analysis. More specifically, I examine how the idea of historical catharsis, which has been used to contextualise and legitimate the function of the TRC, has had a dual connotation: understood to signify the "purgation" of historical trauma, historical catharsis has promoted the creation of a "new" national identity for post-apartheid South Africa; understood to signify the "clarification" of the historical past, historical catharsis has advocated the creation of a human rights culture which attends to and protects the specificity of individual memories. Upon examining the quality and implications of these two kinds of historical catharsis, my paper concludes by reflecting on their tension and by noting how each of the two frameworks of catharsis informs and complicates the current debates on the character and function of the South African TRC at large.