Jamil F. Khan | Protecting victims of historical injustice cannot exist alongside service to the whims of the beneficiaries.
The writer contends that bodies like the SA Human Rights Commission should be more concerned about protecting victims of historical injustice than assuaging the anxieties of beneficiaries."Never and never again" was South African democracy's response to centuries of colonial and apartheid oppression.
The ballot papers had hardly been counted when commissions, inquiries and watchdogs were appointed to start what would become the most unequal society in the world. What we achieved through these bodies remains to be seen, but one thing it has highlighted is that the end of apartheid has not changed the South African social imagery in any significant way.
A reasonable conclusion on South African society may include that we now understand oppression in all its forms and we have developed a profound empathy from the experiences of our past. We haven't. I have stated before that the democratic government's nation-building project should have focused on bridging the divides and healing the pain of black South Africans instead of trying to alleviate white anxieties.
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