Can symbolic gestures organized around notions of human rights have any real impact on power relations in the global system? Specifically, did the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the “Truth Commission”) serve any useful function or did it simply placate the “have nots” in South African society? These are some of the core issues in Wole Soyinka's most recent book, The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness. Soyinka suggests that memory can foster a shared future for divergent cultures and bring globally dispersed black races together. But some memories are better than others according to Soyinka, and the Truth Commission failed both in creating an honest memory of South African history and in providing reparations that would permit the country to enjoy a shared future.

Recent theoretical development in the social sciences provide a backdrop to Soyinka's ideas. Like Soyinka, sociological institutionalists imagine that the international system of sovereign states and ideas of international law are constructed out of a common and universalistic world cultural frame, in other words, a sense of natural law.¹ Unlike Soyinka, institutionalists would emphasize that truth commissions (as well as legal systems in general) are created to reflect these higher Platonic ideals.² From the institutionalist perspective, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission's failure to right individual wrongs is not surprising nor does it signify failure for the overall project. The Truth Commission linked the voices of victims to the ideals of the international system. Although the victims received minimal immediate compensation for their suffering, their voices have become part of the universal principles that shape action in the international system and serve as a source of identity for individuals and nation-states. In a very profound way, the victims who appeared before the Truth Commission may have empowered other would-be victims.

The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness grapples with many themes, from the effectiveness of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the proper topics of African poetry. The chapters in the book are derived from three lectures that Soyinka gave at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. Soyinka's brilliance is particularly evident in the book when he discusses literature. Soyinka won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, and his vivid description and contextual explanations of “Negritude” poetry is inspiring. In the last two chapters of the book, “L. S. Senghor and Negritude—J'accuse, mais, je pardonne” and “Negritude and the Gods of Equity,” Soyinka suggests that Negritude poetry can provide a shared space where Africans around the world come together spiritually, understand their shared history, and fashion a shared future.

Soyinka's thoughts on the importance of symbols in international society frame this article. Within this frame, I discuss his ideas on shared identities among black races and the relationship of modern individuals to history. I then discuss his perspective on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, developing the contrast with sociological institutionalism.

MEMORY AND UNITY THROUGH SYMBOLS

The power of memory is beautifully illustrated in the final pages of The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness in which Soyinka relates an African legend. In 1230, in pre-enslavement, pre-islamic³ Africa, a war was fought between Soundiata Keita and Soumare Kante, the king of Soso. In a famous battle, Soumare is defeated by Soundiata. As one of the spoils of war, Soundiata attains a little musical instrument called the Sosso-Bala. Legend says that the Sosso-Bala was inspired by genies and endowed with supernatural power. Soundiata entrusted the instrument to his personal poet/storyteller, Bala Fasseke Kouyate. For nearly eight hundred years, the family of Bala Fasseke has held the Sosso-Bala in trust for the descendents of Soundiata Keita. During those eight centuries, the instrument never left the family of Bala Fasseke until very recently, when it was taken to France as part of the ninetieth birthday celebration of the French/Senegalese poet and politician, Léopold Sédar Senghor. The Sosso-Bala had inspired much of Senghor's poetry, and the rare presence of the Sosso-Bala was to provide the climax of a three-day celebration. Soyinka describes the crowd waiting in great anticipation. But the crowning moment was anti-climatic: a musician carried the instrument—a lightweight xylophone made of unpolished wood laid over an array of irregular sized gourds—in under his armpit. The sound was nothing extraordinary, just a crisp, aged tonality.

Soyinka writes:

Yet there, right before us, lay eight centuries of history, poetry, of pride, inspiration, and sacred heritage. A simple, unassuming xylophone that was, however, born out of conflict, of a bloody struggle for power and the travails of nation-building, yet innocuous in its appearance, at once an embodiment of history, yet insulated from it. …

(p. 191)

As the musician began to play the instrument, the voice of a female storyteller and a choir created a harmony that enfolded the entire gathering in a “mantle of humanity” that “excluded none, neither the colonizers nor the colonized, neither the slavers nor the enslaved, the disdainers or the disdained” (p. 193).

For Soyinka, the story of the Sosso-Bala provides a glimpse into the possibilities of global harmony and humanized vision, despite a history of bloodshed, exploitation and despair. And Soyinka knows about despair—and hope. Exiled from his native Nigeria by the Sani Abacha regime, he campaigned to keep international pressure on efforts to restore democracy there. With Abacha's unexpected death earlier this year, Soyinka was able to return to his home country.

NEGRITUDE POETRY AND AFRICAN IDENTITY

In the chapter devoted to Senghor, Soyinka describes the tensions which brought African-Francophone and African-American poets together but which also set them apart. In both the United States and the French colonies, Africans have the status of “citizens.” Despite the equality of status, equality in fact among Africans and Europeans has never been achieved under either system because of discrimination. Nevertheless, the French and American systems contrast with the British system, where no such pretense of equal status was ever entertained. Thus, despite language differences, the similar political structure of the U.S. and France created a shared sense of identity for African poets in those countries.

On the other hand, the history of African-Francophones and African-Americans is very different, and that difference influences the nature of their forward-looking strategies. Soyinka contrasts Martin Luther King with Senghor to illustrate this point. While both King and Senghor advocated nonviolent means of change, King was a self-described extremist who felled his adversaries by adopting the moral high ground on precisely those fields—law and religion—that his adversaries held dear. Soyinka is less sympathetic to Senghor's strategy of forgiveness, which he sees as playing into the French elite condescension toward Africans:

[Senghor is] Father Confessor who seizes the poetic privilege of presuming the confession of his sinners, treats their mea culpas as already intoned, then grants them absolution.

(p. 113)

Ultimately, Soyinka grasps the common ground between King and Senghor—the desire to create a bridge to other cultures and a “tool for the retrieval of dispersed black races anywhere in the world,” and this goal is the theme of his third and final chapter. The shared history uncovered in the process of creating this bridge is like the Sosso-Bala: although it includes imperfections and is occasionally mundane, it nevertheless offers an important source of identity and understanding.

RECONCILIATION IN SOUTH AFRICA?

Given Soyinka's insight into the symbolic importance of the mundane Sosso-Bala, his failure to recognize the symbolic importance of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the first chapter of the book is surprising. The Truth Commission emerged out of the complex negotiations between political parties in South Africa in the early 1990s. It rested on an historical foundation that limited its design and abilities.⁴ The two broad purposes of the Truth Commission were to acknowledge and deal with past human rights abuses and to bring closure to the past.⁵

Soyinka highlights three fundamental concerns with the Truth Commission. First, self-confessed criminals were not remorseful. Soyinka and others have noted that some victims were re-traumatized by perpetrators who disclosed their conduct coldly, with arrogance, and without apology. This behavior is sobering and disturbing; but it does not indicate a failure of the entire project. In fact, the stories of the cold-hearted confessions have spread around the globe, illuminating yet again the illegitimacy of the former regime. Indeed, if the ability to evoke remorse was the basis for determining justice, very few modern criminal justice systems would measure up. The value of the Truth Commission lay in its ability to create a sacred space where South Africans in particular, and the international community in general, could express their shared revulsion for those who perpetuated the former exclusionary regime. In other words, the Truth Commission's value should be measured in whether it successfully delegitimated the conduct of the criminals, not whether it reformed them.

Soyinka's second concern is that the Truth Commission is unlikely to have any deterrent effect on other despotic regimes in Africa because it was not sufficiently punitive. That is indisputable, but once again, it does not undermine the overall value of the Truth Commission. Soyinka himself points out that the 1979 bloody coup in Ghana, in which six military officers were publicly executed (as baying students yelled, “Kill! Kill! Blood! Blood! More blood!” [p. 16]) was similarly unsuccessful as a deterrent. Those who exercise power with impunity do not identify with fallen regimes—whether the latter regimes are felled in bloody coups or chastised in formal legal proceedings. Again, the important goal of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was to showcase the humanity of the new regime (in a manner consistent with the strategies of Martin Luther King) and to pointedly exclude those who did not share the same vision. The power of its symbolism was concretely demonstrated within South Africa when ANC's rivals, especially the Inkatha Freedom Party, felt compelled to participate in its proceedings. If corrupt leaders refuse to be moved, they solidify their status as outcasts in the international community, a status that has real consequences in terms of international censure.

Soyinka's final concern—that truth was not accompanied by reparation in South Africa—is the most compelling.⁶ Here he returns to his tendency to view the world in broad terms and to appreciate the importance of symbols in creating change. He links reparations in South Africa to African mobilization for reparations generally. In the period since Soyinka's speeches were delivered, the request for reparations has been somewhat successful. For example, a bill currently pending in the U.S. Congress would make U.S. support to the International Monetary Fund contingent on limited loan forgiveness to “heavily indebted poor countries” (H.R. 1305, Debt Forgiveness Act of 1999). While there is still much to be done in this regard, the reparations movement does have a voice in the international system and demonstrates how symbols that draw distinctions between justice and injustice can have real consequences.

THE ROLE OF SYMBOLS IN GLOBAL SOCIETY

The implicit goal of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was to define the future of South African society in terms of general human rights principles.⁷ Because the Truth Commission was more a reflection than an instrument of these principles, it was from the beginning unlikely to have great direct influence on social conditions in Africa. This “decoupling” between symbol (international discourse) and action (the actual implementation of policy) in South Africa and elsewhere has generated much controversy and consternation.⁸ The essence of decoupling is supporting an ideal but failing to carry out the ideal in day-to-day business and activities. Why does decoupling occur and to what extent does it undermine the overall international project of promoting human rights?

There are at least two explanations for why symbol and action were decoupled in the case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. First, conflicts that can be evaded at the discursive level must be dealt with concretely when a bureaucracy (such as the Truth Commission) tries to implement an ideal. For example, the members of the Truth Commission felt they had to remain impassive even during the cold-hearted recitations of wrongs alluded to earlier, because if they appeared biased the National Party would withdraw its support from the proceedings. Concrete conflicts, such as these, force a decoupling between the perfect ideal of what the Truth Commission ought to have done and what in fact it reasonably could do. Further, the ambiguity of its goals also increased the likelihood that the Truth Commission would have difficulty linking symbol and action. While very concrete and measurable requests must be rejected outright or adopted—they leave little room for purely ceremonial adoption—moral requests or outcomes that are difficult to assess are more likely to receive formal support but be informally ignored. Because the existence of the Truth Commission was highly negotiated, more specificity in its goals was never a realistic option.

This “decoupling” between symbol and action on the Truth Commission is reasonably taken by Soyinka and others to indicate the ineffectiveness of the Commission. But there is reason to be more optimistic. Despite the practical constraints and limitations of the local reality, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission illuminated and empowered perspectives that had been silenced under apartheid. The Truth Commission, while itself derived from the principle of human rights, also fed back into the international system to increase the legitimacy of the human rights message and to make that principle accessible to more individuals.⁹ Other truth commissions established after South Africa's can learn concrete lessons from the South African experience while enjoying greater legitimacy (and hence power to make changes) because they follow a model pre-established in South Africa and other countries.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is part of symbolic rites of passage that make it impossible for South Africa to return to the apartheid system. Such actions at the national level reinforce the legitimacy of the human rights ideals promoted by the international system. Soyinka is correct to be skeptical, in part because the international system that fuels truth commissions and similar reforms is hegemonic and Western in its orientation. Nevertheless, the international system puts real weight behind symbolic action, and in that way empowers an extraordinary range of formerly powerful, but also formerly powerless, individuals. Like the Sosso-Bala, in Soyinka's story truth commissions, in South Africa and elsewhere, have the potential to be profound, but even when mundane, provide a source of identity and shared understanding around the world.

Notes

1. John W. Meyer et al., “World Society and the Nation-State,” American Journal of Sociology 103, (1997): 144-181; Elizabeth Heger Boyle and John W. Meyer, “Modern Law as a Secularized and Global Model: Implications for the Sociology of Law,” Soziale Welt 49 (1998): 213-232; for a review of literature on the power of norms in international relations, see Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organizations 52 [1998]: 887-917.

2. Whether these ideals truly exist is an open question (e.g., see the debate between Bryan Turner, “Outline of a Theory of Human Rights,” Sociology 27 (1993): 489-512, and Malcolm Waters, “Human Rights and the Universalisation of Interests: Towards a Social Constructionist Approach,” Sociology 30 (1996): 593-600.

3. Soyinka chooses to not capitalize the names of religions to protest the failure of most individuals to capitalize the names of traditional African religions.

4. Peter Parker, “The Politics of Indemnities, Truth Telling and Reconciliation in South Africa: Ending Apartheid without Forgetting,” Human Rights Law Journal 17 (1996): 1-13.

5. Peter Bouckaert, “The Negotiated Revolution: South Africa's Transition to a Multiracial Democracy,” Stanford Journal of International Law 33 (1997): 375-410; Paul Lansing and Julie C. King, “South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The Conflict Between Individual Justice and National Healing in the Post-Apartheid Age,” Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 15 (1998): 753-787.

6. Peter A. Schey, Dinah L. Shelton, and Naomi Roht-Arriaza, “Addressing Human Rights Abuses: Truth Commissions and the Value of Amnesty,” Whittier Law Review 19 (1997): 325-343.

7. Jeremy Sarkin, “The Development of a Human Rights Culture in South Africa,” Human Rights Quarterly 20 (1998): 628-665.

8. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists without Borders: Transnational Advocacy (Ithaca: Cornell, 1998); Susan Silbey,” “‘Let Them Eat Cake’: Globalization, Postmodern Colonialism, and the Possibilities of Justice,” Law & Society Review 31 (1997): 207-228.

9. Jeremy Sarkin, “The Necessity and Challenges of Establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Rwanda,” Human Rights Quarterly 21 (1999): 767-823.