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Zimbabwe: Musical Relives South Africa's TRC
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 Published by the government of Zimbabwe |
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The Herald (Harare)
9 May 2008
Posted to the web 9 May 2008
Wonder Guchu
Harare
IN 1994, the former South African President Nelson Mandela asked whether it was possible for the people to forgive and survive.
"Can you forgive the past to survive the future?" he asked.
A year later the South African government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bear witness to, record and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations during the apartheid rule and to make reparation and rehabilitate the regime's victims.
There is a general belief that the confessions made by perpetrators of violence and their victims healed the wounds of apartheid and helped to restore relations between black and white.
Now the musical Truth in Translation that ran as part of Hifa at the Reps Tetrad Theatre in Avondale shows how the innocent translators who helped in conveying the proceedings of the commission became victims of the horror stories they heard.
Featuring a cast of 11, the musical traces how each one of the translators succumbed to nervous breakdowns after absorbing the confessions and testimonies.
Both victims and perpetrators retrace their steps back through the translators who comprise a former ANC soldier, a gay son of a brigadier in the security forces, a Zulu minister and middle class white girl.
The musical opens with the translators given a strong warning not to "become involved" and avoid "personal sympathies and matters of the heart" because they "have no place here".
The excitement of having been chosen to play the important role of translating fades when the testimonies and the confessions start rolling in.
Since a translator has to use the first person narrative in order to put the message across in exactly the same way the other perpetrator or the victim would have put it, the abuse, the pain, the anger, the hate and the desire for revenge is transferred to the translators. They become perpetrators and victims instead.
So does a truth and reconciliation process heal the wounds and smoothen the scars? Or it reopens those wounds and deepens the scars? Does it erase the memories, provide for the losses and, above all, cause people to smile?
So has South Africa forgiven and forgotten to survive the past?
Take Winnie Mandela who is mentioned in the musical several times in connection with the murder of Stompie Seipei.
After the confessions and the testimonies, Winnie and Stompie's mother Joyce embraced and kissed. Was it enough?
An actress in the musical sums up how victims feel about their losses and the perpetrators.
When asked whether she was ready to forgive and forget, she says: "Not today, "but some other time."
But again Bishop Desmond Tutu, who chaired the commission, was quick to say:
"We all stand here to recognise the pain and anguish of so many. We want them to know they have our very deepest sympathy for what they suffered.
"We hope they have it in their hearts to reach out to those who may have caused them pain, to reach out in order for our land to be healed."
Just like South Africans, Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels in her first book titled Fugitive Pieces, published in 1996 through the portrayal of the life of a Jewish boy Jakob Beer who suffered losses and abuse in the hands of Nazis, suggests that it's hard to forgive and forget.
She says: "Neither repentance nor forgiveness can erase an immoral act."
In like manner, Truth in Translation also suggests that while the commission was a beginning, it did not go down deeper to make much impact.
Truth in Translation draws from its rich cast and the great songs that were composed by Hugh Masekela.
It's encouraging in bridging racial and tribal divides for the cast to sing songs in vernacular the way the cast does.
In any case, the musical puts across in song what the cast cannot bring out in words.
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One would love the way the cast takes turns to speak.
On the surface it's so jumbled to be meaningful, but after following the conversation one understand how the voices merge.
Zimbabwe has never seen anything like it.
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