The TRC was about the settling of scores between the ANC and the National Party, about 'moving on', and not about the social impact of colonialism and policies of the apartheid era.

At the end of April, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the establishment of a commission of inquiry into long-standing delays in Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) case investigations and prosecutions.

It sounds nice. It is well-meaning, but it will (deservedly) benefit only those who lost friends and family members who were killed by apartheid's security forces between 1961 and 1994.

We should not traduce the suffering and the injustices inflicted on ANC and PAC activists and guerrillas -- many of them maimed or murdered -- in the conflict between the liberation movements and the apartheid state.

Nor should we dismiss, out of hand, the people "on the other side": the military personnel, police (who fought in defence of apartheid) and civilians (on whose behalf the military and security establishment defended apartheid) who were killed during the conflict.

This new commission, as reported by Daily Maverick's Nonkululeko Njilo, will look into "allegations of improper influence in delaying or hindering the investigation and prosecution of apartheid-era crimes that have persisted from previous administrations".

As if apartheid never mattered

The problem with the TRC, as I understood it at the time,...