On 11/18/05, Vinit Bhansali <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Just after the > end of apartheid[1] in america and south Africa shouldn't the black > community in these two countries have gotten all people who supported > apartheid till a while ago jailed/tried? How many cases did we see? Did we > see any govt. officials being tried, the president? The judges who had been > handing down racially discriminatory sentences to blacks?
Umm. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission [1] hearings in South Africa are considered to be one of the few successful re-integration efforts in the world that is worthy of being followed by other contries plagued with prejudice and discrimination. Trials of the erstwhile opressors frequently have a way of turning into a withhunt. I have talked to South Africans, white, black and brown, and my empirical evidence suggests that it was probably for the better that the reconcilliation proceeded in this manner. Only only has to look at Zimbabwe to see the effects of more radical ways of dealing with a troubled past. Thaths [1] http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/
