History and Memory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

History and Memory - Essay Example To see all these through, South Africa as a nation established Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to handle infamous crimes experienced in the past wicked regime. So many individuals have aired their opinions about the past of South Africa, and they have been trying to consolidate history of the same country making it as recent as possible. A question, therefore, arises as to whether suggestions of the recent history are in support of a vigorous confrontation in the public realm or to be left to be slowly forgotten. To start us off, Stanley (526) observes three main sub-committees of TRC delegated to deal with the infringement of human rights, general pardon and rehabilitation and compensation. However, all of their functions were disregarded because they were not in line with desired types of social transformation. Recent history has exposed several appeals to significances of truth, justice or reconciliation, something that has been confronted by embattled politicians. These individuals as Wilson (16) cannot stand against essentialness in institutionalizing the past contraventions to come out with legitimacy for administration. Moreover, Tutu (32) argues that there are no possibilities of reconciliation with past denial. As Wilson (16) rightfully observes, truth commission ultimately has a symbolic meaning in that it is incapable of prosecuting any individual. Moreover, evidences that they obtain from different individual cannot be of any use in later prosecutions. All these suggest no room for considering actions taken by the TRC for they only hold ineffective claims that they may use to carry out their justice. They have a fundamental role in ensuring that memory is fixed in the members of the nation. In fact, Wilson still talks of the same memories of the past as those that are multiple and fluid at the same time. They are uncertain and vague, a reason why TRC is vital in institutionalizing past occurrences of conflict. In search of effective ways t o bring about healing to individuals of the South African nation, much is done to consider public confrontations in terms of storytelling. Talking about this, storytelling has so far been the best way to share the bitter past, Colvin (153). This is making South Africa acquire its new history. It is preferred to works of its history that aim at the creation, analysis and distribution of apartheid memories that cause trauma. It is a clear fact that the old South Africa bears bitter characteristics owing to what individuals experienced in the past. As old as to is so should be the history, even though it is upon the old history that a new one will bear its foundation. To make the above more clear, Colvin (153) depicts past narrations as a privileged way of communicating the bitter past. Sees individuals come out publicly to narrate their painful past apartheid experiences in line with authorized testimonies, freely telling a story that occurred this situation to someone. This resulted into encouraging result in a healing process of the offended South African individuals. It brought peace and contentment as all of them could just accept the past as it was, to think of the present and the future new history of their land. They anticipated for a future in a new South Africa that bears no traumas, as opposed to what all concerned bodies wanted to hear about. As Colvin observed, it is the same trauma that the news