Reflecting on the Truth:

Has the media coverage of the TRC changed the way
the public sees itself, its history and its responsibility?

Brandon Hamber

The well-known and emotive TV series "Holocaust" was first screened in Germany in 1979. Initial studies into the impact of the series revealed that the programmes lead to increased numbers of Germans feeling that Germany was morally obliged to pay compensation to victims (Ernst, 1979 cited in Theissen, 1997). In contrast, survey research conducted 8 years later, showed increased rates of people rejecting the need for compensation for the victims of the Holocaust (Bergmann & Erb, 1987 cited in Theissen, 1997).

These findings suggest that public media portrayals of human rights violations can have an impact on the attitudes of the population. However, on the more negative side, the research warns of the possibility that such impacts may only be temporary.

In South Africa it is indisputable that a large proportion of the population have been exposed, largely through the media, to the atrocities of the past that have been brought to the fore by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The Special Report on the TRC has about 1.2 million television viewers weekly (cited in Theissen, 1997) and coverage in the press and on the radio has been fairly extensive. Certainly in the urban areas almost the entire population must have been exposed to the work of the TRC and consequently the stories of victims; this is less certain in the rural areas.

The impact of this exposure is difficult to assess. As with the impact of TRC as whole, it is impossible to divorce any attitudinal changes that may have taken place, from the overall process of democratisation . We should never loose sight of the fact that the TRC began nearly two years after the change of government in 1994, and will end when over 4 years of transformation have passed. Thus the impact of the TRC, and the media coverage thereof, on individuals' attitudes is inextricably woven in with a number of political and social issues that have moved in and out of the public space.

At this stage, however, it does seem that the coverage of the TRC has helped sensitise white South Africans about the violations of the past and in all likelihood this must have increased the possibility of them not condoning future violations. A random telephone survey of 124 white South Africans conducted at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) suggested that 23% of the sample had, through the TRC, heard for the first time about the atrocities committed by the apartheid regime, 55% said that they did know about the atrocities but were unaware of the extent and 22% said they had been more or less fully aware (Theissen, 1997). It may well be blatant denial by white South Africans to say they did not know about the atrocities committed by the government. However, the high percentage of those saying that knew but where unaware of the extent, indicates that the TRC has opened-up a number of white South African's eyes to the full evil of the apartheid system. The question, of course, is whether this exposure has had a positive attitudinal impact on them or not.

An HSRC survey conducted before the TRC began showed that 60% of white South Africans felt that victims of apartheid abuses should not be compensated for the ills they suffered in the past (Theissen, 1997). Similarly, the CSVR survey conducted in the early months of the TRC, showed that 56% of the respondents felt the same way. This points to little attitudinal change, despite the start of the TRC. Much time has passed since the CSVR survey and possibly with the extensive exposure of the TRC by the media, these attitudes about compensation may have softened.

However, I am sceptical that there has been a profound change. I would like to suggest for discussion purposes, that despite a greater sensitisation to violations of the past, entrenched beliefs remain and these will only change gradually. If the case of Germany is anything to go by then this type of change can only be expected in the next generation or two.

In my opinion, a lack of willingness to address the imbalances of the past by white South Africans still pervades. I feel confident that one would only need to do a short survey of white attitudes to affirmative action or if they would be willing to contribute to a reparations fund to receive this confirmation.

The attitudes of black South Africans, and certainly the many victims with whom we have worked, seem different. Often they say (although it must be said that they do support the idea of the TRC) that the TRC, and the media, have revealed nothing new although some say that it has confirmed their previous suspicions. They are critical of the TRC's inability to deliver anything concrete, especially real material change. I have heard black South Africans - and of course this may not be representative - refer to the TRC as a waste of time because all the crying and recounting of stories has meant no change in their lives. I have also heard people saying that the media only covers high profile cases and that the media has failed to investigate or uncover new truths like they did in the past.

The essence of these criticisms are that the media has merely reflected the TRC activities and has not delved beyond the TRC itself. These opinions may serve to demonstrate that expectations of victims were too high in the first place, or perhaps these comments reflect a growing dissatisfaction with the delivery of the state as a whole, or still further, maybe they reflect the reality that the majority of those victimised were victimised because of their race and poverty and without addressing these structural forms of violence dissatisfaction will remain.

I share these opinions to some degree and do feel that, at times, the media (and not all the media, I should add) have fallen into the trap of reflecting a reality rather than challenging it. At the core of this is possibly the acceptance by the media of the TRC's assumption that truth is the road to reconciliation. This is not a wholly untrue statement in my opinion, and the media reflecting the truths revealed by the TRC should not be undermined, but it is unlikely that truth alone will be sufficient to change the ingrained apartheid mindset. The challenge, therefore, is to turn the truth revealed by the TRC into transformation, as rhetorical as this might sound. This means exploring the notions of reconciliation, truth, forgiveness and so forth and critically challenging the institutions of both past and present to radically transform.

In conclusion, and from a slightly different angle, in the months April-July 1997 it was reported by the Independent Complaints Directorate that 255 people died in police custody or due to police action in South Africa. It is unclear how many of these deaths were due to unlawful actions by the police, but nonetheless these figures are of grave concern and may point to ongoing levels of impunity in the police service. Vigilantism is also on the increase, the majority of South Africans support capital punishment and frequently you will hear people, and the police, blame the new human rights era for crime in the country.

In essence, human rights education and knowledge remains appalling low in South Africa. To illustrate this, I venture to say, that the majority of South Africans do not see torturing criminals as the same type of violation as torturing political dissidents and probably do not see deaths in police custody as problematic, especially if the person was a suspected criminal.

This points to one of the central weaknesses of the TRC, and those who have reported on it, namely that they have failed to demonstrate that past political violations are as morally wrong as all types of present violations even if these are more hidden, not politically motivated and less pervasive in the new society. This is, in my opinion, the greatest challenge facing those who report on the TRC in the months and years to come. Without forging this link a similar situation to the "Holocaust" series in Germany will be witnessed, in which, the gains made in winning an increased short-term awareness about the violations of the past will not amount to the long-term building of a sustainable human rights culture in South Africa.

References

Bergmann, W. & Erb, R. (1991). Antisemitismus in der Bundersrepublik Deutschland. Ergebnisse der empirischen Forschung von 1946-1989. Opladen: Leske & Budrich.

Ernst, T. (1979). Holocaust und politische Bildung. Media Perspektiven, 4, 230-240.

Theissen, G. (1997) with Hamber, B.; Garson, C.; Segal, L & Terre Blanche, M. (Eds). Between Acknowledgement and Ignorance: How white South Africans have dealt with the apartheid past. A research report based on a Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation public opinion survey conducted in March 1996. Centre for the Study of Violence & Reconciliation, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Brandon Hamber is the former Manager of the Transition and Reconciliation Unit at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

Paper presented at the TRC and Human Rights Journalism in South Africa Workshop Rosebank Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa, 3 October 1997.