In 1990 het H.S. Spies navorsing gedoen oor die praktyk en toekoms van die NG kerk in Parow. Sy bevinding was dat die NG kerk in Parow se lidmaattalle teen ʼn baie vinnige tempo daal en dat heelwat van die gemeentes nie finansieël sal oorleef nie. Hy het voorgestel dat...

This is an edited extract from Dr Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela’s inaugural address as professor of psychology, “The face of the Other : Human dialogue at Solms Delta and the Meaning of the Moral Imagination” presented at UCT.  Full article.

Having grown up in a divided society, and having witnessed different kinds of systematic violence as a child, a student and an adult under the apartheid government, I have been concerned with exploring mainly two broad questions.

First, how have different groups in our society experienced the traumatic and the everyday chaos of apartheid, and how are these experiences remembered? Second, to what degree does engagement with the past evoke a sense of responsibility to contribute meaningfully to transformation?

My work grew out of the investigation of extreme violence committed in a collective context. In particular, I wanted to understand, explain, and bring some coherence to the wave of “necklace” murders that spread throughout South Africa in the mid-’80s. “Necklacing” involved putting a tyre doused with petrol around the neck of a suspected police collaborator , setting it alight and dancing round the burning body.