Machel wants new TRC to aid healing
EIGHTEEN years after democracy, SA has not started to understand its deep societal crises, says Graça Machel, international women and children’s rights activist and humanitarian.
She called for a new version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission so that perpetrators and victims of violence could look each other in the eye and forgive one another.
Machel was delivering the second Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture at the University of the Western Cape last night.
About 400 people gathered in the university’s main hall to hear her speak.
She said that both men and women in SA had not been healed from the emotional and psychological damage that had been inflicted on them. Families, which should be the building blocks of society, had been torn apart for at least three generations.
“It may sound presumptuous but I have observed, as a South African and a Mozambican, that we have huge difficulty in communicating in a serene, peaceful, accommodating manner. We have a lot of anger in our communication.”
Machel described South Africans as “ill, hurting, bleeding”.
“We are harming one another because we can’t control our pain.”
She said that anyone who would rape a woman, child or elderly person was “so damaged that they feel the need to inflict pain and hurt on others”.
“They are trying to destroy humanity in their victims. I think we need a vision of how to build a healthy society. How to heal the character of the sons and daughters of our beloved nation.”
Machel said it was important to be free of anger and frustration that would enable us to touch each other in a loving manner, rather than brutalising one another.
She said gender violence was not something to be discussed for just 16 days a year.
“The issue is why we are having hundreds of thousands of cases where we try to hurt, dehumanise one another.”
Machel said recent studies had shown that 61 percent of fathers in Joburg had never paid maintenance and that 40 percent of households in SA were headed by women, not because the fathers were dead, but because they were absent.
“The SA family structure has changed dramatically in recent decades.”
She attributed this to HIV/Aids, migration to urban areas and migrant workers.
The recent unrest in Marikana had highlighted the way in which mineworkers were living, she said, adding that universities should use their research facilities to come up with a deeper picture of what society had become.
Addressing Tutu, she said: “Arch, you led us to confront our demons with the TRC. It sounded like it would be an impossible job. But perpetrators and victims were able to look into the eyes of one another.”
She said such national dialogue, a social movement with a similar sentiment, would be beneficial to confront the past.
In a lighter moment, at the beginning of the lecture, Machel thanked Tutu for forcing her and Nelson Mandela to marry. She said that at the beginning of their relationship, they were being “a bit naughty” and living together, when Tutu called and said they should get married.
“I just want to say thank you,” she said.