Abstract:
A veiled logic minimises the gift of reconciliation from the poor when we examine
the concepts of “reparation” and “deficit” in our discourse of reconciliation within
South Africa. Instrumental rationality renders umkhondo—the footprints, the hints—
of reconciliation elusive. The kaffir boom, a tree of victory and violence, subsumes
umsintsi, a tree of defeat, a tree of a black person if the symbolic significance of the
two names for the same tree is brought to attention. The interpretation of reparations
and deficit through hegemonic, Western theological lenses cheapens and robs
reconciliation of justice. Who then, is in Vlakplaas today—in post-1994 South
Africa? Is silence penitential or does it signify arrogance by the beneficiaries of
apartheid and colonialism? The myths that conceal the distorted logic being used to
define reparations and deficit are no longer helpful. This article contends that black
Africans need to craft their tools of reconciliation by resisting a bifurcation of their
spiritual resources from the discourse of reconciliation.
