Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been subject to numerous debates across a wide range of disciplines, including peace and conflict studies, justice and transformation studies, as well as religious studies. In political science, the debates concerning the TRC have mainl...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Department of Religious Studies
2020
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613315904045056 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Kumordzie, Beatrice |
| author2 | Tayob, Abdulkader |
| author_browse | Kumordzie, Beatrice Tayob, Abdulkader |
| author_facet | Tayob, Abdulkader Kumordzie, Beatrice |
| author_sort | Kumordzie, Beatrice |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been subject to numerous debates across a wide range of disciplines, including peace and conflict studies, justice and transformation studies, as well as religious studies. In political science, the debates concerning the TRC have mainly revolved around the peace versus justice dichotomy, and more recently - the heated question of whether symbolic measures as opposed to socioeconomic measures can pave the ideal path to justice and reconciliation in post-conflict societies. Arguably, the debates that have dominated the discourse on justice and transformation in South Africa so far has failed to acknowledge and unpack the central role that religion played in the country’s process of transition. My argument is that religion was instrumentalized politically in the TRC, and thereby used to morally justify certain political compromises that were made during the negotiations between the apartheid National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC) in the early 1990s. By political instrumentalization, I am referring to the strategy of using an identity marker, in this case Christianity, to achieve political ends. I propose that that the Mandela administration purposely employed religious elements in the political nation-building-tool of the TRC with the intent to create an atmosphere of “spiritual healing”. This symbolic and inter-personal understanding of justice in turn, it can be argued, came at the expense of retributive and/ or socio-economic justice. The influence of religion within the TRC can be seen most strongly in the identity of the key people involved (the chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and four of the commissioners who were theologians), the overt biblical rhetoric employed both in the hearings and in the final report, as well as in the design of the commission. The constructivist theories in which this paper will frame its understanding of “the religious” suggests any space can become holy through the performance of religious practices. In this regard, I propose that the TRC, while appearing to be a court-like body, became a sacred space through practices including prayers, lighting of candles and singing of hymns. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31612 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:34:10.861Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publishDateRange | 2020 |
| publishDateSort | 2020 |
| publisher | Department of Religious Studies |
| publisherStr | Department of Religious Studies |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31612 The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission Kumordzie, Beatrice Tayob, Abdulkader religion political instrumentalization The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been subject to numerous debates across a wide range of disciplines, including peace and conflict studies, justice and transformation studies, as well as religious studies. In political science, the debates concerning the TRC have mainly revolved around the peace versus justice dichotomy, and more recently - the heated question of whether symbolic measures as opposed to socioeconomic measures can pave the ideal path to justice and reconciliation in post-conflict societies. Arguably, the debates that have dominated the discourse on justice and transformation in South Africa so far has failed to acknowledge and unpack the central role that religion played in the country’s process of transition. My argument is that religion was instrumentalized politically in the TRC, and thereby used to morally justify certain political compromises that were made during the negotiations between the apartheid National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC) in the early 1990s. By political instrumentalization, I am referring to the strategy of using an identity marker, in this case Christianity, to achieve political ends. I propose that that the Mandela administration purposely employed religious elements in the political nation-building-tool of the TRC with the intent to create an atmosphere of “spiritual healing”. This symbolic and inter-personal understanding of justice in turn, it can be argued, came at the expense of retributive and/ or socio-economic justice. The influence of religion within the TRC can be seen most strongly in the identity of the key people involved (the chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and four of the commissioners who were theologians), the overt biblical rhetoric employed both in the hearings and in the final report, as well as in the design of the commission. The constructivist theories in which this paper will frame its understanding of “the religious” suggests any space can become holy through the performance of religious practices. In this regard, I propose that the TRC, while appearing to be a court-like body, became a sacred space through practices including prayers, lighting of candles and singing of hymns. 2020-03-17T12:46:52Z 2020-03-17T12:46:52Z 2019 2020-03-17T12:19:36Z Master Thesis Masters MSocSc https://hdl.handle.net/11427/31612 eng application/pdf Department of Religious Studies Faculty of Humanities |
| spellingShingle | religion political instrumentalization Kumordzie, Beatrice The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission |
| title_full | The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission |
| title_fullStr | The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission |
| title_full_unstemmed | The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission |
| title_short | The political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission |
| title_sort | political instrumentalization of religion in the south african truth and reconciliation commission |
| topic | religion political instrumentalization |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/11427/31612 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kumordziebeatrice thepoliticalinstrumentalizationofreligioninthesouthafricantruthandreconciliationcommission AT kumordziebeatrice politicalinstrumentalizationofreligioninthesouthafricantruthandreconciliationcommission |