Overcoming Apartheid

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Can truth reconcile a divided nation? With the work of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission complete, James L Gibson sets out to test one of its key premises: that truth can facilitate reconciliation and help a nation both deal with its painful past and move on to a more democratic future. Drawing on one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys of post-apartheid attitudes to date and employing innovative conceptual and methodological tools, Gibson's sophisticated and subtle analysis offers both encouraging and disheartening insights into the success of the truth and reconciliation process and provides clear signposts for those involved in taking it further. This is a groundbreaking work of social science research and a major contribution to the literature on transitional justice and conflict resolution.

About the Author
Preface and Acknowledgments

1. Does Truth Lead to Reconciliation?

2. Apartheids Legacy in Contemporary South Africa: Experiences, Attributes, and Attitudes of the Sample

3. South African Collective Memories

4. Interracial Reconciliation

5. Truth, Reconciliation, and the Creation of a Human Rights Culture

6. Tolerance: The Minimalist View of Reconciliation

7. Judging the Fairness of Amnesty

8. The Legitimacy of the Political Institutions of the New South Africa

9. Lessons for South Africas Future and for the World

Appendix A: The Design of the Survey
Appendix B: The Questionnaire

Notes
References
Index

JAMES L. GIBSON is Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University in St. Louis, fellow at the Centre for International and Comparative Politics and Professor Extraordinary in Political Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and Distinguished Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, South Africa.