Unraveling silence: Violence, memory and the limits of anthropology's craft1

Dialectical Anthropology

Volumn 29, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 159-180

  Cuéllar, Alejandro Castillejo ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES   (Colombia)

^b Direct Action Center for Peace and Memory   (South Africa)

Author keywords

Aanthropology; Research ethics; South Africa; Trauma experts; Violence and memory

Indexed keywords

EID: 29144480255     PISSN: 03044092     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10624-005-5117-3     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. This paper is the outcome of more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in South Africa. A great deal of impetus and constructive criticism came from my intellectual exchange and collaboration with local organizations and individuals in the country. I particularly want to acknowledge here my colleagues from the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory in Cape Town whose work is an example of commitment to peace and self-criticism in the midst of much despair (2002-2004). As a Research Fellow during two years, we had the opportunity to reflect on the politics of social research and on the nature of collaborative work between what has come to be termed "academics" and "practitioners." I also want to mention here a Visiting Research Fellowship (2001-2002) from the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation that helped me to understand the subtle registers of South Africa's racial and power dynamics in the production, institutionalization and transnational circulation of "knowledge" about what is referred to as "societies in transition."
2. The notion of "victim" in South Africa often refers to a person "against whom that violation [of gross human rights] is committed (...) [I]t is the intention and action of the perpetrator that creates the condition of being a victim," South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1998) Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Final Report. Volume 1. Cape Town: Juta and Co, pp. 89. Italics mine. Although the TRC acknowledged the diversity of views among commissioners regarding the assumptions implicit in the uses of the term "victim," it finally institutionalized its circulation. However popular and widely used, in this text I do not use this term for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, at least among members of the organizations I interacted with, the word was very seldom used to describe their experiences under apartheid. Secondly, it is a very limited category to describe the experience of apartheid violence. Only people on whom "severe ill treatment" or "torture and abduction," had been inflicted could officially be categorized as "victims." As it is well known, the majority of the population, or at least those who were forcibly removed, falls beyond the limits imposed by this definition. Finally, it creates an ontology of victimhood that does not take into account the historicity of personal experience. I use the term "survivor" with some hesitation too, mainly because - given the systematic nature of apartheid - almost every black South African could be considered a survivor (of an all-encompassing and all-embracing, violently enforced racially discriminatory legislation, for example). This issue points to the limitations of categories that fragment "complex" phenomena into analytical boxes. The term "community" has a rather broad meaning. It refers to groups of survivors (in the general sense) for whom "remembering," by way of specific initiatives, is a historical necessity. In concrete cases, this "remembering" revolves around a specific event that works as a gravitational force. "Community" alludes to the sharing of this historical necessity. In conducting this research, I found very difficult to disconnect the notion of "survivors" from "communities." If the first gives a sense of over-whelming and systematic suffering, the latter gives it specificity in the act of "remembering" as a historical necessity. Remembering then becomes the channel through which this historical suffering is articulated. Hence, both phrases should be read together. The "communities of survivors/remembering" constituted the group of main interlocutors of this text. The survivors I speak about in this paper have all had contact with "trauma experts" and other intermediaries over the past years as "informants," "interviewees," "control groups," "representative samples," and so on. On their request, I have been changed their names.
3. I am indebted to the following institutions for financial assistance during the different stages of this research. Firstly, a Research Fellowship from the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania (2001-2003) allowed to carry out start-up research in Cape Town. Secondly, a Holocaust Memorial Fellowship, and an Eberstadt and a Goldblack Dissertation Fellowship from the New School for Social Research helped me not only to conclude my sojourn in South Africa but also to concentrate on the writing of this text (2003-2005). A Wenner-Gren Individual Research Grant was of great help during the archival process at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Archive, The National Archives, and the Mayibuye Centre Archive at the University of Western Cape (2003-2004). Finally, I want to acknowledge the support of the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and Technology and the Fulbright Commission for a scholarship that allowed the convergence in Cape Town between my personal and my academic life.
4. A local peace organization, the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory, introduced me to the mothers. They had a small initiative - the Mother Support Initiative - aimed at assisting them in very concrete tasks - taking one to the doctor, visiting the graveyard, budgeting for a tombstone, fundraising, etc. - whenever possible. We initially worked and had extensive discussions over a period of six months on the nature of the relationship that could be established between the center and I. We decided that a relation of mutual intellectual collaboration, a sensibility that would undo, at least to a certain extent, the established hierarchies between "academics" and "practitioners," taking survivors as interlocutors in a conversation rather than sources of information, was the only way to go. This perspective resonated strongly with me for, as a Colombian academic and activist, I always felt the necessity of questioning the hierarchies inherent to the research process. I worked in this context, helping in the construction of a social history archive, transferring research and task management skills, organizing memory workshops, and other activities that were part of the center's strategies of social and personal reintegration into the present.
5. In any case, this sort of approach has been a guiding light in my writing on Colombia's war.
6. Castillejo Cuéllar, Alejandro, Poética de lo Otro: Una Antropologia de la Guerra, la Soledad y el Exilio Interna en Colombia (Bogota: Institute Colombiano de Antropologia (Ministerio de la Cultura), Instituto Colombiano para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Técnica, 2000), 4.
7. A disclaimer seems to be necessary at this point. What I wish to maintain in this section is the necessity of seriously reflecting on the relationships between "academics" and "practitioners." The hierarchical nature of this dichotomy accompanied by a set of methodologies alludes to a social and unidirectional distribution and circulation of knowledge. It is the reinscription of this hierarchy and the reification of the survivor's personal history (usually called story, data or information), for the purpose of constructing knowledge, that requires a critique.
8. Gordon, R.J. and A.D. Spiegel, "Southern Africa Revisited," Annual Review of Anthropology 22 (1993): 83-105.
9. ÓMeara, Dan, Forty Years Lost (Athens (Ohio) and Johannesburg: Ohio University Press and Ravan Press, 1996).
10. Meredith, Martin and Tina Rosenberg, Coming to Terms (New York: Publicaffairs, 1993).
11. De Grunchy, J.W., Reconciliation Restoring Justice (Cape Town: David Phillip, 2003).
12. Gordimer, Nadine, Escribir y Ser (Barcelona: Peninsula, 1994).
13. Bennett, Jill and Rosanne Kennedy, World Memory (London: Palgrave; Sparks, 2003);
14. Allister, Beyond the Miracle (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2003);
15. Spitz, Richard and Chaskalson, Mathew, The Politics of Transition: A Hidden History of South Africa's Negotiated Settlement (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 2000);
16. Hayner, Priscila, "Commissioning the Truth: Further Research Questions," Third World Quarterly 17(1) (1996): 19-29.
17. The Transitional Justice Network includes the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ is directed by former South African TRC commissioner Alex Boraine); the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (directed by Charles Villa-Vicencio, former director of the South African TRC research unit) ; Truth Commissions Project, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the International Criminal Tribunal (Yugoslavia and Rwanda), the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Globalitaria and others. Specific institutions, within this network, also publish specialized journals, bulletins, reports, newspaper pieces, offer their services as academic advisors (to funding agencies and governments) and as "in-country assistance," develop student exchange programs (like the African/Southeast Asian Transitional Justice Fellowship Program), boost "capacity building" (general training into the theory and practice of transitional justice) and other forms of dissemination of discourses, concepts, theories, and technologies regarding "the field of transitional justice" (ICTJ electronic page).
18. See www.ijr.org.za/monitors. Italics mine.
19. As a consultant to the Peruvian Truth Commission in 2002, on behalf of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I had the opportunity of discussing the centrality of "South Africa's experience" as a nodal point, a referent, as a location in a global map of "societies in transition" with the executive director and the staff of the Commission's main office in Lima.
20. During previous decades, other ways of breaking this silence was carried out through the production of "autobiographical prison writing," Gready, Paul, "Autobiography and the "Power of Writing": Political Prison Writing in the Apartheid Era," Journal of Southern African Studies 19(3) (1993): 489-523.
21. See for example, Breytenbach, Breyten, True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist (London: Faber and Faber, 1984);
22. Dingake, Michael, My Fight Against Apartheid (London: Kliptown, 1987);
23. Dlamini, Moses, Hell-Hole. Robben Island: Reminiscences of a Political Prisoner (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1984);
24. Mashinini, Emma, Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life: A South African Biography (London: Women's Press, 1989).
25. Cited in Charles Villa-Vicencio and Wilhelm Verwoerd (ed.), Looking Back, Reaching Forward (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press), 157.
26. Coombies, Annie E., History After Apartheid (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2004);
27. Kgalema, Lazarus, Symbols of Hope: Monuments as Symbols of Remembrance and Peace in the Process of Reconciliation (Cape Town: Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 1999).
28. Schell-Faucon, Stephanie, Journey into the Inner Self and Encounter with the Other: Transformation Trails With Militarized Youth in Katorus (Cape Town: Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2001);
29. Neuman, Jochen, Reconciliation and the Transformation of Conflicts: The Reconciliation and Reconstruction Programme of the Quaker Peace Center (Cape Town: Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2001);
30. Kayser, Undine, Creating a Space for Encounter and Remembrance: The Healing of memories Process (Cape Town: Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 2000).
31. There are contexts in which the breaking of silence relates back to problems of memory, voice, and healing. The debate around the Prestwich Street site in Green Point, Cape Town, to mention only one case, is an interesting and telling example. This former burial site for slaves and poor people who were buried before 1818 was found during building construction in June 2003. A group of citizens called the Hands Off Prestwich Street Committee demanded that the "bones of the dead not be excavated." The bones were "removed" by archeologists and are to be interred in a memorial park in Green Point. Here one finds the prerogative of "development" running counter to the prerogative of memorializing. Indeed, they were more than just bones, or "human remains," in archeologists' aseptic language: they could be anyone's bones, the ancestors of many South Africans. They were - like Sarah Baartman's bones after two centuries of display as a sexual freak in Europe - reclaimed, reconnected to the present, and laid to rest. At one point during the process of consultation between the South African Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra) and the committee, the bones were also retrieved from historical silence. With the permission of Sahra, a "psychic" spoke with the ancestor buried there: "Some of their voices, are asking to be heard (...). Many were buried without dignity (...). [T]hese people are not unhappy they've been unearthed - it's a chance to be acknowledged. There has to be honour and dignity (...). The spirits are asking to be laid to rest, and by telling their story this will happen ("City ghost speaks from the Grave," Cape Argus (Life Section) November 11, 2003."
32. See also, "Where I am from, Let the Bones Rest in Peace," Cape Argus, October 11, 2003.
33. With regards to Sarah Baartman's remains returning to South Africa see Chris McGreal "Coming Home," Guardian (UK) (21st February 2002). Italics mine.
34. There are personal accounts of the struggle for liberation from soldiers, journalists, lawyers, activists, and even former apartheid bureaucrats: Steyn, Roy, One Step Behind Mandela. The Story of Roy Steyn As Told to Deborah Patta (Johannesburg: New Holland Books, 2000);
35. Ramphele, Namphela, A Life (Claremont: David Phillips, 1995);
36. Sachs, Albie, The Free Diary of Albie Sachs (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2004);
37. Slovo, Gillian, Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country (Great Britain: Little, Brown and Company, 1997);
38. Letlapa, Mphahlele, Child of Soil: My Life as a Freedom fighter (Johannesburg: Kwela Books, 2003);
39. Kathrada, Ahmed, Memoirs (Cape Town: Zebra Books, 2004).
40. Kasrils, Ronnie, Armed and Dangerous: From Underground Struggle to Freedom (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1998);
41. Jaffer, Zubeida, Our Generation (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2003);
42. Durbach, Andrea, Upinton (Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2002);
43. De Kock, Eugene, A Long Night's Damage: Working for the Apartheid State (Saxonwold: Contra Press, 1998);
44. Schneider, Else, Time Stretching Fear (Cape Town: Robben Island Museum, 2000).
45. See also major figures such as Madikizela-Mandela, Winnie, Part of My Soul (London: Penguin Books, 1985);
46. Mandela, Nelson, A Long Walk to Freedom (Cape Town: Back Bay Books, 2003);
47. De Klerk, F.W., The last Treck: A New Beginning (London: Pan Books, 2000);
48. Tutu, Desmond, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999).
49. There are a handful of overlapping reasons for this situation: a historical lack of proper education, writing skills, study routines and habits, and managing and organizational skills during the writing process that would enable survivors to express their views of the past in particular ways. The abandonment of formal schooling by many children during the 1980s, under the slogan "Liberation before education" played an important role in this process. Secondly, in some instances, I would also include the skepticism about the written word as an uncompromising reservoir of history and as the proper channel for its transmission. Finally, the most pervasive reason for this situation is another kind of historical vacuum: the difficulty of seeing the survivor's sacrifices as worth telling, and as historical actors who deserve to be recognized. Sometimes, in the light of the great historical narrative, their efforts are perceived as small, and condemned to be perpetually invisible.
50. For 22,000 official "victims of human rights violations," this acknowledgement has taken the form of material and symbolic reparations, as proposed to the president by the TRC. Yet, with the narrow definition of "victim," "the TRC created a diminished truth that wrote the vast majority of apartheid's victims out of its version of history." Mamdani, Mahmood, "A Diminished Truth," in Wilmot James and Linda Van Der Vijver (ed.), After the TRC: Further Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa (Cape Town and Athens (Ohio): David Phillips and Ohio University Press, 2000), 61.
51. Most of the information I will use to pinpoint at these problems comes from my personal and professional engagement with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), peace activists and academics in Cape Town. I found strong resonance of these issues in the context of Colombia as well, although with different intensity by way of informal conversations. I owe much of my reflections on the problems of irony of voice in South Africa to Yazir Henry and Heidi Grunebaum.
52. The name has been changed. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Mandla during the course of this section come from conversations in Cape Town between May 2002 and December 2003.
53. "Silence" is also articulated by survivors as the failure of language to "describe" or "convey" the intensity of human suffering and the atrocities of the past in its "real magnitude."
54. I have done it myself during the aftermath of certain massacres in Colombia.
55. According to the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, trust is "la: assured reliance on some person or thing: a confident dependence on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; b: a person or thing in which confidence is placed: a basis of reliance, faith, or hope."
56. On one occasion I was trying to develop the notion of itineraries of meaning/sense/direction - the Spanish word sentido, blends these three meanings - in order to "visualize" the ways personal histories interact with macro-historical processes in the social space. The idea was to reconnect the person's personal experience with macro-historical processes. In order to do that, I was using memory workshops and life-stories as basic information-gathering techniques. During the first recorded session, after clarifying the conversational nature of our encounter, my interlocutor Mr. Nyatsumba sat in silence, waiting for a question. It took him a while to understand this "conversational" dynamics (which, compared to other techniques, obviously has its own set of problems). "You make questions I answer them. This is what I did before," he said, concluding, "This is very different from what I experienced before."
57. Henri, Yazir, "Where Healing Begins," in Charles Villa-Vicencio and Wilhelm Verwoerd (eds.), Looking Back, Reaching Forward (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2000), 166.
58. Lind, Jeremy and Kathryn Sturman, Scarcity and Surfeit: The Ecology of Africa's Conflicts (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2002);
59. Mendes, Pedro Rosa, Bay of Tigers (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2003);
60. Wrong, Michela, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz (London: Fourth Estate, 2000);
61. Goldsmith, Paul, et al., "Oil and Water in Sudan," in Jeremy Lind and Kathryn Sturman (ed.), Scarcity and Surfeit (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2002);
62. Moyroud, Celine and John Katunga, "Coltan Exploitation in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo," in Jeremy Lind and Kathryn Sturman (ed.), Scarcity and Surfeit (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2002).
63. Paradoxically, recent political autobiographies can simultaneously be a tool for recognition and acknowledgement as well as a commodity that circulates with lesser or greater success throughout the publishing industry (from editors to consumers) and other market niches. Mandela's biography is an interesting example. It is a sober and humble testimony of sacrifice, indeed. But, the book is also an exceptional best-seller, whose paperback copy has been reprinted thirty times since 1994.
64. Minow, Martha, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 82;
65. Ross, Fiona, Bearing Witness (London: Pluto Press, 2003), 39;
66. Villa-Vicencio, Chales, "Getting on with Life: a move Towards Reconciliation," in Charles Villa-Vicencio and Wilhelm Verwoerd (ed.), Looking Back, Reaching Forward (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2000), 201;
67. Krog, Anjie, Country of My Skull (London: Random House, 2003), 191.
68. Henri, Yazir, "Where Healing Begins," in Charles Villa-Vicencio and Wilhelm Verwoerd (ed.), Looking Back, Reaching Forward (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2000), 166.