The second chapter of the fifth volume of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report is entitled “Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights.” It contains a long list of names in alphabetical order. The document says there will be more names to come. But this, already, is a rich and representative sample. Take any section, and it could have come from a Johannesburg phone book:
MATISO, Peace
MATISO, Sithembele
MATITI, Zandisile
MATIWANA, Hombakazi
MATIWANA, Nontombi Beauty
MATIWANA, Siphiwe Headman
MATIWANE, David Ndumiso
MATIWANE, Lungisa Welcome
MATJEE, Lawrence
The names run into hundreds. Folded into the neat letters of each name is an invisible horror. We know a little more about one of these names, Lawrence Matjee, because David Goldblatt took a photograph of him in 1985. No one in the history of photography ever captioned photographs more scrupulously than did Goldblatt:
Fifteen Year Old Lawrence Matjee After His Assault And Detention By The Security Police, Khotso House, De Villiers Street, Johannesburg, 25 October 1985
“Yes, they tortured people here,” my friend says. She points out the building. It has a façade of blue tile. This is John Vorster Square, headquarters of the security police. In the old days people went into this building and came out lessened, if they came out at all. It was an evil place. The victim, by continuing to suffer, irritates the oppressor, who would rather be already past it. We drive on in silence. Will there someday be another Truth and Reconciliation Commission? One that features names like Faisal bin Ali Gaber, Nabila Rehman, and Zubair Rehman? Maybe. But should such a day ever come, if history’s any guide, we won’t be ready to forgive those people for what we did to them.