Conference. Conflict, Reason and Reconciliation. South Africa Twenty Years Later

Transcription

1 Conference Conflict, Reason and Reconciliation. South Africa Twenty Years Later 7-8 April 2016 Aula Magna Università, Largo A. Gemelli, Milan April 2016 will be the 20th anniversary of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission s opening ceremony. The conference s aim is twofold: on the one hand, to discuss the idea of reconciliation starting from South Africa s experience; on the other hand, to investigate the inheritance of the TRC in South Africa today. The first day of the conference will examine the context in which the TRC was created, and focus on the role of the people and the religious and secular doctrines of reconciliation which made this experience possible. The second day of the conference will provide an insight into the TRC s functioning and achievements. The discussion will benefit from two approaches, legal and psychological, to analyse the role of forgiveness and restorative justice to overcome gross human rights violations. A session will also be dedicated to the role of literature and the participation of the churches in the process of transition. Finally, a few concluding remarks will be presented on what the South African experience may contribute to the process of understanding and integration in today s deeply divided world. The conference is organized within the research project The Crisis of Eurocentrism and the Future of European Humanism: Historical, Cultural, Religious, Legal and Socio-Economic Perspectives, coordinated by Professor Gian Luca Potestà and funded by Università ( ) (link: The conference is organized in collaboration with the Federico Stella Research Centre on Criminal Law and Criminal Policy of Università of Milan, and is part of the research project Giustizia e letteratura / Justice and Literature (link: Speakers (in alphabetical order) Robi Damelin South African and Israeli, Robi is at present the Israeli spokesperson and member of the Parents Circle Families Forum (PCFF), a group of 600 Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost close family members to the conflict and who work together for reconciliation and a just resolution of the conflict. Robi Damelin's son, David, was killed by a Palestinian sniper in March of 2002 while he was guarding a checkpoint near a settlement during his army reserve service. Since becoming active in the Parents Circle, Robi has spoken to thousands of Israelis and Palestinians and people all over the world to demand that reconciliation be a part of any peace agreement. Robi was named as a 2015 Woman of Impact by Women in the World. In 2014, Robi was selected by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice as one of four Women Peace Makers. She is the protagonist featured in the documentary One Day after Peace.

2 John De Gruchy An ordained minister in the United Congregational Church, he served two congregations before joining the staff of the South African Council of Churches in In 1973 he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Cape Town where he became Professor of Christian Studies and, during the last few years of his tenure, the Director of the Graduate School in Humanities. He retired in 2003 and was appointed a Senior Research Scholar at UCT and an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. He has lectured in many countries across the world, and has authored or edited more than thirty books on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the church in South Africa, contextual, public and Reformed theology, social history, Christianity and the arts, reconciliation and justice, and Christian humanism. He is editor of the Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Amongst his recent books are Reconciliation: Restoring Justice; Being Human; Confessions of a Christian Humanist, and John Calvin: Christian Humanist & Evangelical Reformer. An autobiography, I Have Come a Long Way, was published in Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela Clinical psychologist and Senior Research Professor at the Stellenbosch University, she served on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as coordinator of victims public hearings in the Western Cape. In that role, Professor Gobodo-Madikizela participated in and facilitated encounters between family members of victims of gross human rights violations and perpetrators responsible for these human rights abuses. She is one of the major experts of the process of forgiveness and its relation to past trauma. Pumla interviewed the head of the security forces hit squad, Eugene De Kock, commonly referred to as Prime Evil, when she served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to get an understanding of how the mind of one of apartheid s chief assassins had worked. A Human Being Died that Night: A Story of Forgiveness is Professor Gobodo-Madikizela's account of her interviews with Eugene de Kock. Albie Sachs His career in human rights activism started when he was a teenager. Albie Sachs practiced as a human rights advocate at the Cape Bar in his twenties: this cost him being raided by the security police, being banned, and eventually placed in solitary confinement without trial. In 1966 he went into exile, spending some twenty years studying and teaching law in England, first, and then in Mozambique. In 1988 he was blown up by a bomb placed in his car in Maputo by South African security agents, losing an arm and the sight of an eye. After recovering from the bomb he devoted himself full-time to preparations for a new democratic Constitution for South Africa. In 1990 he returned home and as a member of the Constitutional Committee and the National Executive of the ANC took an active part in the negotiations which led to South Africa becoming a constitutional democracy. After the first democratic election in 1994 he was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to serve on the newly established Constitutional Court. Through South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Justice Albie Sachs of South Africa s Constitutional Court was able to meet the security force operative who had organised the placing of the bomb in his car. The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter is Justice Albie's account of his recovery and his return to South Africa where his dream of "soft vengeance" was realised with the achievement of democracy in South Africa. Eddy van der Borght Ordained as minister of the United Protestant Church in Belgium in 1988, he holds a PhD in Theology (Universiteit Leiden). Currently he is Desmond Tutu Professor and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His theological research focuses on the identity of religious communities in relation to their potential for reconciliation and conflict in South Africa. Aspects of this research deal with the public theology of archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Christian doctrine of reconciliation before and after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the symbolic expression of reconciliation in liturgical acts, and the ecclesiological consequences of reconciliation.

3 Etienne van Heerden Etienne van Heerden is a South African writer and is Hofmeyr Professor in the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Cape Town, where he chairs the Afrikaans and Netherlandic Studies Section. Born in 1954, six years after the official advent of apartheid, he initially studied law, and became an internationally recognized writer in 1987 with the publication of his novel Toorberg (Ancestral Voices), establishing its author as the leading novelist of his generation. Van Heerden was among the Afrikaans writers secretly meeting the banned ANC of Mandela and exiled writers. He is seen as one of the members of a generation of Afrikaans writers, intellectuals and musicians who significantly contributed to opening up the Afrikaner psyche to change. Among his recent literary works are the bestseller Die Swye van Mario Salviati (2000) (English: The Long Silence of Mario Salviati, 2003), In Stede van die Liefde (2005), Asbesmiddag (2007), 30 Nagte in Amsterdam (2008).

4 Programme Aula Magna, Università, Largo Gemelli 1, Milan Thursday, 7 April Welcome speech FRANCO ANELLI, Rector, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Greetings SAUL KGOMOTSO MOLOBI, Consul-General South African Consulate General Milan Video Images from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South Africa*, presented by RUGGERO EUGENI and ALICE CATI, Università GIAN LUCA POTESTÀ, Director of the Department of Religious Studies, Università Speaker EDDY VAN DER BORGHT, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Discussants ADOLFO CERETTI, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca CLAUDIA MAZZUCATO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Friday, 8 April GABRIO FORTI, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Università Speakers PUMLA GOBODO-MADIKIZELA, Stellenbosch University ALBIE SACHS, Former Justice South African Constitutional Court, Yale University Discussants FRANCESCO D ALESSANDRO, Università GABRIELE DELLA MORTE, Università ARIANNA VISCONTI, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore ARTURO CATTANEO, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Speakers ETIENNE VAN HEERDEN, University of Cape Town JOHN DE GRUCHY, University of Cape Town *Video edited by Alice Cati, Riccardo Rovescalli, and Francesco Toniolo, Università Discussant MARCO RIZZI, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Concluding remarks ROBI DAMELIN, Parents Circle-Families Forum Simultaneous interpreting provided

5 REGISTRATION INFO Maria Chiara Cattaneo Università Largo A. Gemelli, Milano mariachiara.cattaneo@unicatt.it