ABSTRACT
In our reflections on the past ten years of law, politics and transformation in South
Africa the notion of reconciliation occupies a central place. Reconciliation was – and
probably still is – seen as the one ideal that must be fulfilled. Many other aspirations
have been used in the same breath as reconciliation, some as quid pro quos for
reconciliation, others to reinforce the ideal of reconciliation. The obvious one to
mention here is of course truth, as used in the mantra of the South African Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), No reconciliation without truth. Memory,
forgetting, mourning, past, future and justice are a few of the other notions used
and abused in the reconciliation discourse. Despite the centrality of the notion of
reconciliation in South Africa’s legal and political transformation, both the discourse
and the practice of reconciliation have often, from a variety of perspectives, been
criticized. One strand of this critique has focused on the manner in which time is
dealt with in reconciliation debates and practices.
