Articles on Truth and Reconciliation Commission

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A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee is removed on Friday, May 19, 2017, from Lee Circle in New Orleans. AP Photo/Scott Threlkeld

June 5, 2017

Why taking down Confederate memorials is only a first step

Joshua F.J. Inwood, Pennsylvania State University and Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee

Monuments to the Confederacy in New Orleans and many other cities are problematic. But a mere erasure will not address the issues around racism and racial inequality.

Rwanda has come a long way since the dark days of 1994 genocide. Shutterstock

April 6, 2017

Rwanda & South Africa: a long road from truth to reconciliation

Cori Wielenga, University of Pretoria

The road to reconciliation doesn't begin and end with truth commissions or trials. Change must occur at a systemic level, and communities must commit to rebuilding relationships.

A visitor checks on her family’s plot after more than 170 Jewish headstones were toppled in University City, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri. Tom Gannam/Reuters

March 1, 2017

Dealing with hate: Can America’s truth and reconciliation commissions help?

Joshua F.J. Inwood, Pennsylvania State University

The first US Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up in 1999. Here's why truth commissions matter today.

Students march at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University in 2015. They were seeking a legal right to be taught in English rather than Afrikaans. Mike Hutchings/Reuters

February 21, 2017

The humanities: looking the past in the eye

Peter Vale, University of Johannesburg

Next year South Africa’s Stellenbosch University will celebrate its centenary. A recent conference to discuss the anniversary has reminded everyone present that knowledge is a fickle mistress.

President Barack Obama entering the Oval Office. Americans have not come to terms with deep racial fissures, despite electing a black president. Reuters/Joshua Roberts

November 10, 2016

South Africa must take heed: ignoring inequality and race got Trump elected

Steven Friedman, University of Johannesburg

Since the future is so uncertain, South Africa's best response to Trump's election is to learn the lessons of its causes.

SA Defence Force conscripts return to their base at Ruacana, northern Namibia, in 1988. John Liebenberg

September 2, 2015

The lingering, unspoken pain of white youth who fought for apartheid

Theresa Edlmann, University of South Africa

The impact that the system of conscription had on the roughly 600,000 white men who became both pawns and agents of the apartheid state has seldom been publicly acknowledged.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo plans to establish a rights committee to resolve past human rights abuses. EPA/Adi Weda

July 15, 2015

Victims of rights abuse in Indonesia need more than compensation

Giri Ahmad Taufik, Indonesian Center for Law and Policy Studies (PSHK)

Activists and victims of human rights abuses in Indonesia are worried that a new rights committee will not stop the culture of impunity.

June 26, 2015

Forgiveness as the first step in reconciliation

Francis X Clooney, SJ, Harvard University

Can Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Dylann Roof be forgiven — and should they? Forgiveness is not an isolated, one-time act but a longer commitment to acceptance back into a community.

Top contributors

Joshua F.J. Inwood
Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University
Giri Ahmad Taufik
Legal Researcher, Indonesian Center for Law and Policy Studies (PSHK)
Theresa Edlmann
Post-doctoral fellow in History, University of South Africa
Francis X Clooney, SJ
Professor of Divinity, Harvard University
Peter Vale
Professor of Humanities and the Director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), University of Johannesburg
Cori Wielenga
Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation, University of Pretoria
Steven Friedman
Professor of Political Studies, University of Johannesburg
Derek H. Alderman
Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee