Researchers probe forgiveness in South Africa

A new study will explore which aspects of testifying before South Africa?s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) promote healing among those who?ve suffered atrocities, and which open old wounds.

The three-year study is the first to examine the psychological aftermath of testifying before South Africa?s TRC among victims of crimes such as bombings, murders, politically motivated torture and police harassment, that were committed under the country?s former apartheid government.

The researchers secured funding through the international program, Scientific Studies on the Subject of Forgiveness, which is funded in part by the John Templeton Foundation.

'There are so many mitigating factors that could make a testifier?s experience positive or negative that we could reason by analogy with the rape-and-child-abuse literature all we want, but we really need to do the research to see what?s going on,' says Jeffrey Sonis, MD, MPH, of the University of Michigan, who is spearheading the study along with Dan Stein, MD, of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. The research team also includes Robert Enright, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin and James Coyne, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania. According to Sonis, the TRC strives to spur spiritual reconciliation through testimony from both the perpetrators and victims of human rights atrocities, thus promoting what Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls 'unbuntu,' or, roughly translated, the 'intercon-nectedness of all people.' The researchers plan to examine what has or hasn?t promoted unbuntu among 150 victims of human rights abuses, half of whom are TRC testifiers.

Using custom-made psychological measures, they?ll explore, for example, how much the presence of family and friends helps testifiers handle their ordeal; how testifiers deal with offenders? evasion of punishment; whether sympathy from the TRC eases their fears of testifying; and whether apologies from perpetrators help them forgive and heal. They will also use a diagnostic interview to determine whether testifying promotes or exacerbates post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Ultimately, the researchers aim to pinpoint factors that predict a positive aftermath for victims who testify.

'We hope that our research will help future commissions set themselves up in a way that promotes healing and forgiveness as opposed to making the pain worse,' says Sonis.

?B. Murray