Why Truth and Reconciliation Commissions matter

And why I hope high school history teachers will show this film to their students.

More than teaching us something about the tragedy of apartheid, about which they can learn from many other sources, Red Dust teaches us about the value of memory on the one hand, and about the path to closure on the other. It also inspires us to consider the importance of bearing witness -- not just for the sake of humanity, but for the sake of our own humanity.

Memory, according to Freud, is what enables the patient to liberate himself from a sort of bondage to the past, a crippling compulsion to enact over and over again what he has forgotten. It's not often noticed that Freud suggested yet another way to handle hurtful memory: to forget or deactivate it. Forgetting may be an entirely appropriate response to some painful experiences. The challenge is to know when and what to remember and when and what to forget.

In the case of South Africa, the truth commissions were necessary both to the cause of remembrance and forgiveness (selective forgetting.) Giving the victims of apartheid the chance to bear witness to their trauma was vital in part because they couldn't be expected to heal without it. Silence about the injustice done to them had been tantamount to yet another act of violence, humiliation and degradation. Once they received emotional support and validation from sympathetic others, including the South African state, these victims could be relieved at last of some of the burden of memory, regain their dignity, begin a long process of emotional healing, and reorient themselves toward the future.

But what about the rest of us? What does it mean to watch this movie and bear silent, passive witness to the suffering of others? That is what I hope teachers will discuss with their students and parents with their children.

I believe this movie teaches us that we have an obligation to listen. It's part of a fundamentally democratic spirit of treating people as ends in themselves. We can't have a moral world unless all of us are willing to listen to the victims of injustice and be prepared to endorse their moral responses to what has happened to them. Even when we can't accomplish much on our own, even when most of the world is indifferent to one moral cause or another, by listening to the stories of injustice we declare allegiance to the good.

And that is a moral stance well worth teaching to our children. When we do that, we pass on the beacon of hope to the next generation.

Thanks to all who were involved in the making of Red Dust for doing their share to pass on that beacon of hope.