Country of My Skull

Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa
By Antjie Krog

This is a first-hand account of a South African radio journalist who is assigned to cover the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 to investigate the atrocities that had occurred in South Africa under apartheid. The Commission was tasked with hearing the testimony of both victims and their oppressors, who had applied to the Commission for amnesty for their crimes.

Krog’s account of the hearings is intensely personal and makes explicit the message that the personal can never be separated from the political. The book is filled with first-hand accounts of the violence and horror of the apartheid regime. Krog deftly demonstrates the power and limitation of story telling as a mechanism for finding truth. Her writing is compelling and lyrical and she coveys to her readers the enormity and impossibility of the Commission’s task.

This is a fascinating book in terms of its content, but it is also beautifully written. I’ve been reading a lot more non-fiction lately than I normally do, and I have developed a stronger appreciation for non-fiction that is well written. The subject matter of this book was more impactful for me because Krog’s writing style is so emotive. One of my favourite passages in the book is this one, which really has nothing to do with apartheid at all but speaks to the author’s personal experience as a South African living through the Commission hearings:

We lie on our backs in the autumn. The leaves sift like coals from the burning
trees. Your voice smells of bark. “Come with me…” The flaming season plunges
into us. And it lies heavily on my arms – this late inopportune lust to abandon
what is seen to be my life.

Before picking up this book, I knew absolutely nothing about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Reading this book has inspired me to learn more. I’m interested not only about the work of the Commission in South Africa, but I’m intrigued by the idea of reconciliation as a something that can be achieved through the process of story telling. It seems to me that implicit in the creation of the Commission is the acknowledgement that the criminal justice system is inherently inadequate to redress crimes of the kind of widespread complicity that marked apartheid rule in South Africa. The Commission was a very public and very political way to try to accomplish things we think of as intensely personal – healing and forgiveness. It seems impossible, almost laughable, to undertake the task of healing an entire nation of people after decades of divisive apartheid rule. But to do nothing is even more impossible, no?

Here is the Commission’s website if you want to know more: http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/