The Impossible Machine

Adam Sitze meticulously traces the origins of South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission back to two well-established instruments of colonial and imperial governance: the jurisprudence of indemnity and the commission of inquiry. This genealogy provides a fresh, though counterintuitive, understanding of the TRCs legal, political, and cultural importance. The TRCs genius, Sitze contends, is not the substitution of forgiving restorative justice for strict legal justice but rather the innovative adaptation of colonial law, sovereignty, and government. However, this approach also contains a potential liability: if the TRCs origins are forgotten, the very enterprise intended to overturn the jurisprudence of colonial rule may perpetuate it. In sum, Sitze proposes a provocative new means by which South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be understood and evaluated.