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Traumatic memory, representation and forgiveness:

Some remarks in conversation with Antjie Krog’s
Country of My Skull
Author: In light of Koos Vorster’s recent work dealing with themes such as memory, forgiveness and
Robert R. Vosloo1 reconciliation, this article underlined the argument that a critical engagement with literary
Affiliation:
texts can be valuable to clarify and enrich a theological response to questions related to
1
Department of Systematic these notions. More specifically, the article focused on Antjie Krog’s profound and deeply
Theology and Church History, moving engagement with the work and legacy of the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Stellenbosch University, Commission in her book Country of My Skull (1998), that used the notion of forgiveness as lens
South Africa
for such an undertaking. Taking the cue from the poem with which the book ends, the article
Correspondence to: addressed questions such as ‘To whom is the plea for forgiveness addressed?’ and ‘Who is
Robert Vosloo asking for forgiveness, and what must be forgiven?’ In the process attention was given to
questions about the limits of representation and the need for an ethic of interconnectedness.
Email:
[email protected]
The article suggested that these questions beg for further theological engagement.

Postal address:
171 Dorp Streeet,
Traumatiese herinnering, representasie en vergifnis: Enkele opmerkings in gesprek met
Stellenbosch 7600,
South Africa Antjie Krog se Country of My Skull. In die lig van Koos Vorster se resente werk oor temas
soos herinnering, vergifnis en versoening, het hierdie artikel die argument onderstreep dat ‘n
Dates: kritiese interaksie met literêre tekste van groot waarde kan wees om die teologiese gesprek
Received: 15 Mar. 2011
oor hierdie sake te verhelder en te verryk. Die artikel het meer spesifiek op Antjie Krog se
Accepted: 11 Aug. 2011
Published: 28 Sept. 2012 diepsinnige en ontroerende bespreking van die werk en nalatenskap van die Suid Afrikaanse
Waarheids- en Versoeningskommissie gefokus. Die konsep van vergifnis is as lens vir hierdie
How to cite this article: ondersoek gebruik. Gegewe die aard van die gedig waarmee die boek afsluit, is vrae soos ‘Aan
Vosloo, R., 2012, ‘Traumatic
wie word die pleidooi vir vergifnis gerig?’ en ‘Wie vra vir vergifnis, en wat moet vergewe
memory, representation and
forgiveness: Some remarks word?’ aan die orde gestel. In die proses is aandag gegee aan vrae rakende die beperkinge
in conversation with Antjie verbonde aan representasie van trauma uit die verlede en die noodsaaklikheid van ‘n etiek
Krog’s Country of My Skull’, van interverweefdheid. Daar is gesuggereer dat hierdie vrae ook om ‘n teologiese respons vra.
In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi
46(1) 2012, Art. 53, 7 pages.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ids.
v46i1.53 Introduction
In recent years Koos Vorster has written several articles dealing with themes such as memory,
forgiveness and reconciliation (cf. Vorster 2004, 2009a, 2009b). In his engagement with these
interrelated notions Vorster often refers to the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC). For instance, in an article titled ‘An Ethics of Forgiveness’ Vorster makes the
important observation that in the execution of the Commission’s mandate, it encountered issues
that begged not only legal but also ethical questions, including questions related to repentance
and forgiveness. He further points to the fact that in the recent past scholars from a wide array of
academic disciplines had reflected on the socio-political meaning of repentance and forgiveness,
and that South African Christians too are wrestling with these matters. Therefore he asks:
What is the significance of the Christian concept of forgiveness in a political transition signified by
suspicion, racism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism and the violence caused by these phenomena? How can
these core Christian concepts be translated into a socio-political praxis of restoration and reconciliation?
(Vorster 2009b:366)

The value of Vorster’s work on the theme of forgiveness and related concepts, in my view,
lies in his commitment to ask how a Christian theological approach could contribute towards
addressing these questions. I share this commitment, although in this article I want to underline
© 2012. The Authors. the argument that a critical engagement with literary texts can be valuable to clarify and enrich a
Licensee: AOSIS theological response to questions related to forgiveness.
OpenJournals. This work
is licensed under the
Creative Commons Hence I find it revealing that one of the best theological books on forgiveness written in English the
Attribution License. last few decades, Gregory Jones’s Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis, contains extended

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discussions of texts such as Dostoevsky’s The Brothers

Karamazov, Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Simon Wiesenthal’s
Questioning forgiveness in
The Sunflower (Jones 1995). The conversation between some conversation with Country of My
literary texts and an ethics of forgiveness indeed holds much Skull
promise. Not surprisingly some have argued that literature In the ‘Publisher’s Note’ introducing Country of My Skull we
can help us deal with the trauma of the past. In their book read that the Truth Commission ‘has become an intensely
Narrating our Healing: Perspectives on Working through Trauma, illuminating spotlight on South Africa’s past’ (Krog 1998:viii).
Chris van der Merwe and Pumla Gobodo–Madikizela (2009), One can argue, in similar vein, that Antjie Krog’s book, which
for instance, state that: was first published in 1998, enables a revealing perspective on
literary writers invent new narratives through which the the disturbing and deeply-human experiences surrounding
traumatic memory of readers can be vicariously expressed, so the work of the TRC. As André P. Brink, another eminent
that they can experience a catharsis. Literary narratives can South African writer, notes on the back cover of the book:
help us to confront our traumas, to bring to light what has ‘Trying to understand the new South Africa without the
been suppressed; it also imagines new possibilities of living Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be futile; trying
meaningfully in a changed world. (p. ix) to understand the Commission without this book would be
irresponsible.’
Whilst questions about the (im)possibility of adequate
representation, as well as questions related to an ethics of
In this article I shall look at Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull
representation remain, I am also of the opinion that literature
through the lens of forgiveness, a notion that was also at the
has the power to express and represent traumatic memory
heart of the work of the TRC, although one should mention
and that it can play an important role in ‘narrating our
that the term ‘forgiveness’ is not mentioned in the Promotion
healing’.
of National Unity and Reconciliation Act (Act 34 of 1995),
which states the conditions for amnesty for perpetrators.
For the purposes of this article I want to turn to Antjie
The Act thus did not require that perpetrators show remorse
Krog’s profound and deeply-moving engagement with the
or victims offer forgiveness, only that they make a full
work and legacy of the TRC in her book Country of My Skull
disclosure of their actions and indicate that these actions
(1998), a book that Vorster himself refers to in a footnote as
were proportional and politically motivated. Nevertheless, it
an ‘impressive account of some of the stories told before the
is true that, as literary critic Mark Sanders (2007) notes in his
TRC’ (2004:486). Country of My Skull developed out of Krog’s
book Ambiguities of Witnessing: Law and Literature in the Time
award-winning work on the TRC as reporter for the South
of a Truth Commission:
African Broadcasting Corporation (under the name Antjie
from the beginning of the Truth Commission’s life, a discourse,
Samuel). Whilst it is not the purpose here to place Country
and counterdiscourse, on forgiveness surrounded it: there were
of My Skull in the context of Krog’s life and work, one can
perpetrators who apologized, and asked for forgiveness, and
recall the description of Krog by one of the narrators in J.M. sometimes victims forgave or said that they are willing to do so
Coetzee’s polyphonic novel Diary of a Bad Year (2007): under certain conditions; at the same time, there were those who
On Antjie Krog did not ask forgiveness, ones who were unforgiving, and those
who criticized the expectations that victims ought to forgive.
Over the airwaves yesterday poems by Antjie Krog read in (pp. 93−94)
English translation by the author herself. Her first exposure, if
I am not mistaken, to the Australian public. Her theme is a large In her book Imagining Justice: The Politics of Postcolonial
one: historical experience in the South Africa of her lifetime. Her Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Julie McGonegal (2009) also
capacities as a poet have grown in response to the challenge, observes:
refusing to be dwarfed. Utter sincerity backed with and acute, As the hearings unfolded, the language and ethic of confession and
feminine intelligence, and a body of heart–rending experience to forgiveness saturated the speeches of many commissioners, not
draw upon. Her answer to the terrible cruelties she has witnessed, to mention the testimony of perpetrators and victim-survivors
to the anguish and despair they evoke: turn to the children, to alike. It also infiltrated the public realm through the national
the human future, to ever–self renewing life. No one in Australia and international press as well as through the production of
writes at a comparable white heat. The phenomenon of Antjie Krog dramas, visual artworks, films, memoirs, autobiographies, and
strikes me as quite Russian. In South Africa, as in Russia, life may fiction. (p. 154)
be wrenched: but how the brave spirit leaps to respond (p. 199).
Given the fact that forgiveness is central to the work and
In this article I shall focus especially on how Country of My legacy of the TRC, it is not surprising that it features
Skull, and more particularly the untitled poem with which prominently in a book like Country of My Skull. The American
the book ends, invites reflection and challenges the discourse edition is even published with the subtitle Guilt, Sorrow, and
on forgiveness and related notions. At the outset I need to the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa (Krog 2000a).
mention that although forgiveness and concomitant concepts Although it is a misleading reduction to call forgiveness ‘the
such as confession of guilt and reconciliation should not theme’ of the book, one is nevertheless invited to read the
be confounded, one also ought to guard against any neat book through the lens of forgiveness in light of the poem at
separation that obscures the interrelatedness of these notions. the end of the book, a poem that ends with the words:

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Forgive me White people, including those sceptical of the commission.

Forgive me The TRC was mostly met with negativity and suspicion in
Forgive me White Afrikaans-speaking circles, including in religious
you whom I have wronged, please communities, and Krog even received hate mail from people
Take me who saw the Commission as an attack on Afrikaner identity.
with you. (Krog 1998:279) Whilst Country of My Skull is by no means a romanticising of
the TRC, it can be read on one level as a manifesto in which
To whom is the plea for forgiveness addressed? Krog adds her signature to the defence of the legitimacy of
the TRC. This act of legitimisation is seen, for instance, in the
When one reflects on the end of Krog’s poem – and indeed concluding paragraphs of the book that place the poem in
on the poem as a whole – the question of the addressee of the
the context of experiences on a boat returning from Robben
poem comes to the fore. This question is closely intertwined
Island. In this space between the place where Nelson Mandela
with the question of whom the book is addressed to. On a
and others were incarcerated, on the one hand and the
certain level Country of My Skull can be viewed as an attempt
mainland where the Parliament is located (the seat of power
by the author ‘to find an interlocutor, an addressee, an other
where the first scene of the book is situated), Krog is filled,
for whom her own story will cohere’ (Sanders 2007:149). Who
in her words, ‘with an indescribable tenderness towards the
is this interlocutor, addressee and other? In her interesting
Commission’ (1998:278). She acknowledges the shortcomings
article ‘They Never Wept, the Men of my Race’: Antjie Krog’s
of the Commission, ‘the mistakes, its arrogance, its racism, its
Country of My Skull and the White South African Signature’
sanctimony, its incompetence, the lying … the showing off’
Carli Coetzee (2001) has argued that it is quite significant
(Krog 1998:278). She praises, however, the Commission for
that Country of My Skull is signed with the name ‘Antjie Krog’
and not the name ‘Antjie Samuel’ (her married name which keeping alive the idea of a common humanity and carrying a
she used as a reporter). By signing the book with the name flame of hope. The strong identification with the Commission
associated with her as Afrikaans poet, she: is seen in her wish to ‘sign’ the work of the Commission:
‘I want this hand of mine to write it’ (1998:278). And then
thus captures the attention of her Afrikaans-speaking readers,
follows the poem that has subsequently also been published
who are called on to take notice, and are forced to read the book
alongside, or on top of, the other work produced under this in English and Afrikaans versions as part of a cycle of poems
signature. (pp. 686−687) titled ‘Country of Grief and Grace’ and ‘Land van genade en
verdriet’ respectively (cf. Krog 2000a, 2000c).
However, the idea that the text is written merely for fellow-
Afrikaners, addressing them, is misleading. The poem at the
The poem that ends Country of My Skull opens with the
end of the book, with the line addressing ‘You whom I have
words:
wronged,’ indicates another addressee as well. The same can
be said about the revealing dedication, which reads: because of you
this country no longer lies between us … (Krog 1998:278)
for every victim
who had an Afrikaner surname on her lips. (Krog 1998:iii) Who is this indefinite ‘you’? The comparable Afrikaans
version of this poem in Krog’s book of poetry Kleur kom nooit
Whilst this dedication does not imply that the victims, like
alleen nie does not use ‘you’ but begins: ‘vanweë die verhale van
those Black women who testified before the TRC, are the only
verwondes’ (‘because of the stories of the wounded’) (Krog
addressees, it does point to the strong identification between
Krog’s signature and ‘every victim who had an Afrikaner 2000a:42) – the translation does not capture the alliteration),
surname on her lips.’ Through her gendered dedication, suggesting that these are the narratives of the traumatised
Krog seems to be calling her Afrikaner readers to witness victims that have changed her relationship to the country
her addressing a Black woman on whose lips one finds the and others. Later we read:
names of Afrikaner perpetrators. As Carli Coetzee (2001:686) … by a thousand stories I was scorched
observes: a new skin. (Krog 1998:279)
the audience that Krog’s book invokes is not a unitary one. She The Afrikaans reads:
is speaking to black South Africans, explicitly in front of (and
… ’n duisend woorde
thus also to) fellow whites, but not only to them/us. So the text
skroei my tot ’n nuwe tong (literally, ‘a thousand words scorch
remains aware that the brothers and fathers are watching, but it
does not address them exclusively, nor does it use the language me to a new tongue’). (Krog 2000a:42)
of the Afrikaner ancestors. The men who did not cry have The poem, addressed to the victims but with a wider
to listen, but also listen to the daughter addressing someone audience in mind as well, is on one level a testimony by the
beyond them. author that amidst the vulnerability of language, the stories
Whilst Country of My Skull does not claim any easy of victims have enabled a new language and a new identity,
identification with the victims, it does aim to show hospitality albeit through a painful process. In a sense the poem also
to the words of the witnessing victims, thus ‘giving the contains a call to fellow South Africans to open themselves
domain of words over to the other’ (Sanders 2007:150). up to new projects of identity formation. As Anthea Garman
The plea for forgiveness is addressed to the victims, but (2008) has argued in her article ‘The Mass Subject in Antjie
it is also addressed in front of (and thus also to) fellow Krog’s Country of My Skull’:

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Krog’s TRC-inspired text is not only the second-person And to get that memory, to fix it in words, to capture it with
performance of the ethical listening to the thousands of new and the precise image, is to be present at the birth of language itself.
previously silenced voices, but also a means to enable the third- But more practically, this particular memory at last captured in
person readers to join Krog and the first-person speakers in an words can no longer haunt you, push you around, bewilder you,
imaginary ”new South African” subjectivity. (p. 224) because you have taken control of it – you can move it wherever
you want to. Maybe this is what the Commission is all about –
Through the modelling of hurt, affectedness and apology
finding words for the cry of Nomonde Calata. (p. 42, 43)
Country of My Skull ‘provides a hermeneutic vehicle for those
seeking a new understanding of – and place within – a new But trying to find words to do justice to the trauma of the
collective’ (Garman 2008:226). past is not a task that leaves you unaffected, physically
and mentally. In response to a request to send a sound bite
Who is asking for forgiveness, and what must be mentioning immense atrocities, Krog (1998) writes:
forgiven? My hair is falling out. My teeth are falling out. I have rashes.
The question, to whom the plea for forgiveness in the poem is After the amnesty deadline I enter my house like a stranger. And
addressed, can be supplemented with the question, or cluster barren. I sit around for days. Staring. My youngest walks into a
room and starts, ’Sorry, I am not used to you being home.’ No
of questions: Who is asking for forgiveness? And what must
poetry should come forth from this. May the hand fall off if I
be forgiven? One can argue that the weighty three-fold plea
write this. (p. 49)
for forgiveness in the poem signifies not merely identification
with the victims, but also a strong sense of being in a Later in the book Krog returns to the question of language,
relationship of complicity with the perpetrators. Forgive me. poetry and the representation of trauma. In an imagined
The plea for forgiveness is thus linked to historical complicity. conversation she puts the following words in the mouth of
her German interlocutor:
Moreover, one can argue further that the request for Every educated German knows the line: ’Der Tod ist ein Meister
forgiveness is tied to the vulnerability and failure of aus Deutschland‘ you explain. After the Second World War it was
language. Country of My Skull is painfully aware of the limits said in Germany: it is barbaric to write a poem after Auschwitz.
of language in representing the trauma of the past. The Yet Paul Celan wrote this indescribably beautiful Fugue of
haunting fragments of testimonies recounted in Country of Death. The reception of the poem was ambivalent … In the
My Skull are introduced with the words that testify to the end Celan himself felt this ambivalence and asked anthologists
vulnerability of language, but also show the commitment to to remove the poem from their books. (Krog 1998:237; cf. also
find language to counter oblivion and death: Sanders 2007:147–148).

To seize the surge of language by its soft, bare skull The remark stating that it is barbaric to write a poem after
Beloved, do not die. Do not dare die! I, the survivor, I wrap you Auschwitz (which is by Adorno although the text does not
in words so that the future inherits you. I snatch you from the name him), challenges Krog the poet to consider whether it
death of forgetfulness. I tell your story, complete your ending – is not also barbaric to write poetry after apartheid. Therefore
you who once whispered beside me in the dark. (Krog 1998:27) the conversation continues:
The physical and psychological impact of reporting on the That is precisely why I say that maybe writers in South Africa
TRC is also linked to language: should shut up for a while. That one has no right to appropriate
… reporting on the Truth Commission indeed leaves most of us a story paid for with a lifetime of pain and destruction. Words
physically exhausted and mentally frayed. come more easily for writers perhaps. So let the domain belong
Because of language. (Krog 1998:37) to those who literally paid blood for every faltering word they
utter before the Truth Commission. (Krog 1998:237,238)
Krog (1998) continues by saying how she struggled to find
language to report during the second week of the hearings: This statement from Krog invites the question of whether her
remarks are the result of the fact that she cannot find a form
I stammer. I freeze. I am without language … The next morning
the Truth Commission sends one of its own counsellors to for dealing with the past, to which she replies – recalling a
address the journalists. ’You will experience the same symptoms conversation she had with the Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman:
as the victims. You will find yourself powerless – without help, ‘I often write pieces down from memory, and when I check
without words.‘ (p. 37) the original tape, it is always, but always better than my own
Trauma creates a crisis of language – for reporters and effort’ (1998:238). But the question remains, in Dorfman’s
victims. When Krog (1998) recalls the testimony of Nomonde words in the hosted dialogue: ‘How else would the story be
Calata, whose husband was one of the ‘Cradock Four’ who told?’ (Krog 1998:238).
were murdered by the security police, she comments on
Nomonde’s piercing crying: This dialogue gives rise to the question: Is the plea for
forgiveness in the poem at the end of the book not also a
The academics say pain destroys language and this brings about
an immediate reversion to a pre-linguistic state – and to witness
plea to forgive the failure and inability to do justice to the
that cry was to witness the destruction of language into a time testimony of the victims through literary representation? Is a
before language … was to realize that to remember the past of book like Country of My Skull not also barbaric, including the
this country is to be thrown back into a time without language. concluding poem?

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Forgiveness – the limits of In addition, the call to ‘take me with you’ points towards
a notion of forgiveness that is not separated from an
representation and an ethic of understanding of interconnectedness (for a further
interconnectedness elaboration of what Krog calls an ethic of interconnectedness,
see Krog 2009). In an important essay published in the
Yet, it seems, the author who signed the book in the name of
South African Journal of Philosophy, significantly entitled
an Afrikaans poet, cannot do otherwise but to end her book
‘”This thing called reconciliation …” forgiveness as part of
with a poem: an interconnectedness–towards–wholeness’ (which was
because of you written during her fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg in
this country no longer lies Berlin), Krog (2008) clearly positions her understanding of
between us but within forgiveness and reconciliation within a broader African
it breathes becalmed communitarianism and relates it more specifically to the
after being wounded more localised Southern African concept of ubuntu, the idea
in its wondrous throat that a person is a person through other persons. For Krog
in the cradle of my skull (2008) this concept of interconnectedness-towards-wholeness
it sings, it ignites suggests that forgiveness and reconciliation cannot be neatly
my tongue, my inner ear, the cavity of heart separated. She writes about these notions:
shudders towards the outline They are not only closely linked, but also mutually dependent:
new in soft intimate clicks and gutturals the one begins, or opens of a process of becoming, while the
of my soul the retina learns to expand other is the crucial next step into this becoming … It is important
daily because by a thousand stories that the Xhosa word for reconciliation in the concept of Truth
I was scorched and Reconciliation, is forgiveness (uxolelwano). The TRC literally
means in Xhosa: the Truth and Forgiveness Commission. When
a new skin.
looked at from a human rights view, one can say that forgiveness
I am changed forever. I want to say: was forced on people through this name. When looked at from
forgive me an interconnected view, the word indicates the first step towards
forgive me changing into a more humane self that would include both
forgive me victim and perpetrator. (pp. 355−356)
You whom I have wronged This focus on a more humane self is also seen in the quotation
take me
taken from the testimony of Cynthia Ngewu, the mother
with you. (Krog 1998:278, 279) of Christopher Piet (one of the ‘Gugulethu Seven’), which
This poem testifies to the vulnerability of language in provides the heading for Krog’s essay, and was also quoted
witnessing to the trauma of the past and in doing justice at the beginning of the chapter ‘Reconciliation: The Lesser of
to the voices of the victims (‘after being wounded in its Two Evils’ in Country of My Skull:
wondrous throat’). However, the stories (‘a thousand stories’) This thing called reconciliation … if I am understanding it
do not merely point to the vulnerability and impotence of correctly … if it means the perpetrator, this man who killed
language. The poem speaks of the birth of a new language, Christopher Piet, if it means he becomes human again, so that
which enables hearing, feeling, seeing (‘The retina of my I, so that all of us, get our humanity back … then I agree, then I
soul expands’). But this seeing is not separated from being support it all. (Krog 2008:356, 1998:109).
scorched, contributing in the process to new identification For Krog (2008) these words make clear what
(‘a new skin’). interconnectedness-towards-wholeness entails and the role
of reconciliation in it. She comments as follows on Cynthia
The threefold plea for forgiveness at the end of the poem, Ngwena’s remarkable words:
one can argue, is also linked to the commitment to a common Her words, firstly, mean that she understood that the killer of
journey and a common future. This points to what I have her child could, and did, kill because he had lost his humanity;
called elsewhere a timeful understanding of forgiveness, in he was no longer human. Secondly, she understood that to
other words a view that does not abstract forgiveness from forgive him would open up the possibility for him to regain his
truthful memory and hopeful vision (Vosloo 2001). There is humanity; to change profoundly. Thirdly, she understood also
a real temptation to use forgiveness and the confession of that the loss of her son affected her own humanity; she herself
guilt as part of a clever strategy to achieve political or moral had now an affected humanity. Fourthly and most importantly,
gain. Such accounts are often not interested in a truthful she understood that if indeed the perpetrator felt himself driven
engagement with the past or a close identification with a by her forgiveness to regain his humanity, then it would open up
common future, displaying in the process a static account of for her the possibility to become fully human again. (pp. 356−357)
forgiveness and reconciliation. One can further point to the Krog (2008) further tries to untangle what she calls
significant space between the phrases ‘take me’ and ‘with you’ ‘interconnected-towards-wholeness’ from the other driving
in the poem. This open space underscores the difficulty of forces of the TRC discourse, such as Christianity, human rights
forgiveness, of asking for forgiveness, of offering forgiveness language, liberation politics, et cetera. The question can be
and of claiming that you are forgiven, even pointing to the asked, however, whether she should not have put a stronger
moral need to hesitate in making this plea. emphasis on the continuity between these discourses and

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an ethic of interconnectedness. For instance, she juxtaposes subsequent reflections point towards. Vorster’s more recent
forgiveness instituted by Christ and forgiveness inspired by work on forgiveness and related notions offers a valuable
interconnectedness-towards-wholeness: resource for such an undertaking.
Christian forgiveness says: I forgive you, because Jesus has
forgiven me (Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who Conclusion
trespassed against us). The reward of this forgiveness will be in
heaven and also holds the possibility that one can forgive without Difficult forgiveness
reconciling … Furthermore, Christian forgiveness also has the In his monumental work Mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, translated
possibility of reconciling without forgiving: one can live in peace into English as Memory, History, Forgetting the philosopher
with sinful neighbours without forgiving them their deeds. Paul Ricoeur (2004) is concerned with the vital but complex
On the other hand, interconnected forgiveness says: I forgive question of the representation of the past. In a long epilogue
you so that you can change/heal here on earth, then I can to his extensive discussion of memory, history and forgetting,
start on my interconnected path towards healing. The effort is Ricoeur turns to the notion of forgiveness. This epilogue has
towards achieving full personhood on earth. This means that the apt heading ‘Difficult Forgiveness’ (Ricoeur 2004:457).
forgiveness can never be without the next step: reconciliation, At the heart of Ricoeur’s discussion of ‘difficult forgiveness’
and reconciliation cannot take place without it fundamentally lies what he describes as the asymmetrical relationship or
changing the life of the one that forgave as well as the forgiven
the disproportion that exists between the poles of fault and
one. (p. 357)
forgiveness. He therefore speaks of ‘a difference in altitude,
I think that this binary opposition drawn by Krog between of a vertical disparity, between the depth of fault and the
Christian forgiveness and what she terms interconnected height of forgiveness’ (Ricoeur 2004:457). It is this asymmetry
forgiveness is too stark. Whilst one should certainly be aware that constitutes the equation of forgiveness: ‘below, the
of possible discontinuities in this regard, one should not, avowal of fault; above the hymn of forgiveness’ (2004:457).
in my view, see Christian forgiveness (informed, amongst The experience of what Ricoeur calls ‘fault’ points towards
other things, by words from the Lord’s Prayer) as necessarily the fact that we are accountable for our actions. For there
separated from an ethical imperative towards reconciliation to be forgiveness, we must be able to accuse someone of
on earth. In an interesting article ‘On earth as it is in heaven: something and declare them guilty. This accountability links
Eschatology and the Ethics of Forgiveness’ Andreas Schuele
the act to the agent. The descent into ‘the depth of the fault’
(2009) has argued that it is important to note that in the
makes the term ‘unforgivable’ applicable. Moreover, Ricoeur
Lord’s Prayer – with its emphasis on the expectation of God’s
does not only speak of the depth of fault, he also refers to the
kingdom to arrive on earth (‘your kingdom come, your will
height of forgiveness. Hence a counter-proclamation can be
be done on earth as it already is in heaven’) – the one human
heard: There is forgiveness. This ‘there is’ (what Emmanuel
activity that is mentioned is forgiveness. He further notes:
Levinas called illéité) is the height from which forgiveness
Matthew was certainly not of the opinion that there was is announced. This ‘voice from above’ is not a mute voice.
anything that human beings could do to accelerate the arrival
Its form of discourse is that of the hymn; it is a discourse
of this kingdom or, conversely, to prevent it from coming. But
of praise and celebration. According to Ricoeur, this voice
this seems to be precisely the reason that Matthew is interested
says: ‘There is forgiveness as there is joy, as there is wisdom,
in how human beings can and should live toward the arrival of
extravagance, love … Forgiveness belongs to the same family’
this kingdom. (p. 198)
(2004:467). The hymn of forgiveness is for Ricoeur akin to St.
The focus is thus on the transformation of human life. The Paul’s famous hymn dedicated to love (1 Cor 13).
clearing of past sins needs to display the ‘fruits of repentance’
(Schuele 2009:196). Ricoeur’s reference to the ‘hymn of forgiveness’ displays
something of the fact that although forgiveness is difficult
Whilst one can agree with Krog that the idea of to give and receive, as well as to conceive of, our language
interconnectedness-towards-wholeness should be disentangled about forgiveness (and related notions) is nevertheless
from other driving factors (such as Christianity, human always seeking form and genre. We certainly should
rights discourse, etc.) in order to arrive at a more complex avoid cheap speech when it comes to forgiveness, also for
interpretation of the TRC process, the challenge also theological reasons; nevertheless, the need remains to find
remains to ask questions about possible continuities and words and gestures to deal with the past – a past that is
correspondences. Krog ends her article by saying: ‘Sustained always hauntingly present. Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull
scholarship into the formation, sustainability, integrity and powerfully testifies to the limits and power of language in
moral compass of interconnectedness-towards-wholeness representing the trauma of the past. Moreover the book,
could lead to a more informed discourse around events and more specifically the concluding poem, links traumatic
happening on the African continent’ (Krog 2008:365). In a memory – the need and limits of representation – and
similar fashion one can say that more sustained theological forgiveness in a way that breathes pain and promise.
work – also from a Reformed perspective – that focuses
on a Christian ethic of forgiveness is needed too, also in We have no indication in the text that the plea for forgiveness
conversation with the challenges posed by literary texts such and a common future expressed in the final lines of
as Country of My Skull, and more specifically by the views Country of My Skull is countersigned by the victims, or by
on forgiveness and reconciliation that this text and Krog’s others witnessing her plea. It is thought provoking to note

http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v46i1.53
Page 7 of 7 Original Research

though, as Mark Sanders has done, that one of the strongest Coetzee, J.M., 2007, Diary of a Bad Year, Viking, New York.
acknowledgements of literature by the TRC is evident in the Garman, A., 2008, ’The mass subject in Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull’, in A.
Hadland, S. Sesanti & H. Wassermann (eds.), Power, Politics and Identity in South
fact that Krog’s poem has been used as an epigraph to Volume African Media, pp. 204–219, HSRC Press, Pretoria.
7 of the TRC Report. This volume, of over a thousand pages, Jones, L.G., 1995, Embodying forgiveness: A Theological Analysis, Eerdmans, Grand
Rapids.
‘lists the name of every victim recognised by the commission,
Krog, A., 1998, Country of My Skull, Random House, Johannesburg.
along with a brief account of the human rights violation that Krog, A., 2000a, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the
he or she suffered’ (Sanders 2007:114). And in the page across New South Africa, Three Rivers Press, New York.
from Krog’s poem in Volume 7 we find the signatures of 15 Krog, A., 2000b, Down to My Last Skin, Random House, Johannesburg.

of the truth commissioners (cf. Sanders 2007:146). Perhaps Krog, A., 2000c, Kleur kom nooit alleen nie, Kwela, Cape Town.
Krog, A., 2008, ‘”This thing called reconciliation...” forgiveness as part of an
this reception of Krog’s poem suggests in some small way interconnectedness-towards-wholeness’, South African Journal of Philosophy
that amidst the sense of the vulnerability of language in 27(4), 353–366.

representing the past we should also hold fast to the idea that Krog, A., 2009, Begging to Be Black, Random House, Cape Town.
McGonegal, J., 2009, Imagining Justice: The Politics of Postcolonial Forgiveness and
words too can do surprising things. This insight also invites Reconciliation, McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal.
theological commentary. Ricoeur, P., 2004, Memory, History, Forgetting, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Sanders, M., 2007, Ambiguities of Witnessing: Law and Literature in the Time of a

Acknowledgements Truth Commission, Stanford University Press, Stanford.

Schuele, A., 2009, ‘”On earth as it is in heaven”: Eschatology and the Ethics of
Forgiveness’, in A. Schuele & G. Thomas (eds.), Who is Jesus Christ for Us Today?
Competing interests Pathways in Contemporary Christology, pp. 185–202, Westminster John Knox
Press, Louisville.
The author declares that he has no financial or personal Van der Merwe, C. & Gobodo–Madikizela, P., 2009, Narrating our Healing: Perspectives
relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced on Working through Trauma, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle.

him in writing this article. Vorster, J.M., 2004, ‘Truth, Reconciliation, Transformation and Human Rights’, The
Ecumenical Review 56(4), 480–502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6623.2004.
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http://www.indieskriflig.org.za doi:10.4102/ids.v46i1.53