The Impossible Machine
A Genealogy of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission
A fresh, though counterintuitive, understanding of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s legal, political, and cultural heritage
Description
Adam Sitze meticulously traces the origins of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission back to two well-established instruments of colonial and imperial governance: the jurisprudence of indemnity and the commission of inquiry. This genealogy provides a fresh, though counterintuitive, understanding of the TRC’s legal, political, and cultural importance. The TRC’s genius, Sitze contends, is not the substitution of “forgiving” restorative justice for “strict” legal justice but rather the innovative adaptation of colonial law, sovereignty, and government. However, this approach also contains a potential liability: if the TRC’s origins are forgotten, the very enterprise intended to overturn the jurisprudence of colonial rule may perpetuate it. In sum, Sitze proposes a provocative new means by which South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be understood and evaluated.
Adam Sitze is Associate Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought at Amherst College.
Reviews
This meticulously documented work with nearly 100 pages of footnotes traces the legal and philosophical roots of South Africa's groundbreaking Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sitze (law, jurisprudence, and social thought, Amherst College) brings to light the extent to which the commission must be seen as drawing upon past legal precedent within both the context of South Africa and the broader jurisprudence of Europe.
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