ABSTRACT
In liberal democracies such as South Africa that seeks to address historical institutional injustices, debates on memory culture and preservation of colonial monuments are characterised by a tension between the cohesion of the state and simultaneously respecting the rights of citizens to dignity. Some proponents of transitional justice logic as a morally satisfactory guide to solving this impasse. The idea stems from the assertion that transitional justice mechanisms such as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission provide a so-called ‘middle ground’ between citizens’ individual rights and social cohesion. As per the proponents of this view, the field of transitional justice promises to contribute helpful recommendations that ameliorate the complexity of the statue debate. My intention in this chapter is to contend that transitional justice discourse is quite impotent in offering a solution to this debate because it is a site of conceptual contention that illustrates the dissension between compromise and consensus in societies like South Africa. In fact, transitional justice discourse illuminates even further that certain histories, identities, and memories cannot be reconciled by virtue of the fact that they exist because of the antagonism of others.
