Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa

Continuing the return to fragmented narrative, this chapter contains three parts: two letters directed to Krog and a victim testimony, all centered on buried truth coming to light. The first letter is from a man named Tim, who tells Krog his personal story of imprisonment, torture, and rape as a young man of 19. He feels that telling his story to the TRC has allowed him to reconnect with his family by enabling them to understand what he went through and talk about his experiences as they haven’t been able to before. He describes the change as if “I have been freed from a prison that I’ve been in for eighteen years […] It’s as if we are waking up from a long, bad nightmare” (193).

The second letter comes from a white woman named Helena, who has had multiple relationships with men ruined by trauma from their experiences carrying out violent orders. Like Tim, she feels the TRC has enabled her to understand and open up about difficulties in her life, as she has come to realize the origins of the changes in her husband, whose activities she knew nothing about previously. She asserts that she will “stand by my murderer who let me and the old White South Africa sleep peacefully” (195), but that she also understands and forgives the freedom fighters, saying, “I would have done the same had I been denied everything” (195).

The final piece of this chapter is a longer testimony from Mananki Seipei, the mother of Stompie Seipei, a 14-year-old antiapartheid fighter murdered by Winnie Mandela’s “football club.” Seipei’s testimony relates the long period of months between her son disappearing and her holding a funeral for him, during which misinformation about his death is rampant. Over and over again people try to tell Seipei that her son is really alive while she insists that she knows he is dead, with Seipei ultimately concluding for the Commission: “I buried no one but Stompie” (200). Seipei’s testimony becomes critically important—as detailed in Chapter 20—in exposing the truth about Winnie Mandela’s own hit squad.

Krog focuses on three primary topics: Archbishop Tutu’s illness and its effect on the TRC, her own responses to the pressures of covering the TRC and how they compare to others in a similar situation, and an interview with Joe Mamasela, a notorious black member of the Vlakplaas.

Archbishop Tutu receives a cancer diagnosis, throwing the entire TRC and its mission into question. While Tutu is sick, opponents of the TRC take advantage of his absence to attack the TRC itself, claiming there are racial tensions within the Commission, putting the TRC’s ability to handle conflict without Tutu’s driving moral force to the test. Krog’s explanation of Tutu’s background and place in society mythologizes him, making him seem like more than just a regular man, even as he takes ill. With Tutu indisposed, the National Party redoubles its efforts to discredit the TRC, calling for Tutu to apologize, Boraine’s firing, and threatening to take the TRC to court for pre-judging their submission.

Krog meets Joe Mamasela, whom she calls “the best-known black violator of human rights” (225). Mamasela is the opposite side of the spectrum from Tutu. Where Tutu is open, forgiving, moral, and willing to admit his own failings, Mamasela is mysterious, terrifying, and highly adept at spinning information to protect himself and his interests. In his estimation, he has simply done what he had to in order to survive, and claims that his time with the Vlakplaas was so that he could compile a “dossier” on the other members in order to have leverage against them. He asserts: “‘I will never go to the TRC to humiliate myself in front of them. I will not give the politicians the honor of humiliating Mamasela after what they have done to Mamasela—both black and white” (232).

Between Krog’s characters studies of Tutu and Mamasela, she addresses her town trauma and that of her colleagues, particularly the black journalists. After the news outlet spins information that Krog gives them, she has a violent outburst, yelling at the news editor and physically grabbing her. Krog’s outburst prompts her to observe that black journalists handle the TRC much better than the white ones, and the black journalists claim the “commission’s work doesn’t affect them because they grew up with human rights abuses all around them” (222). However, a visiting psychologist uncovers that those same journalists are exhibiting behaviors they never have before—crying, violent outbursts—and explains that their trauma is finding expression from underneath the outward calm.

Chapter 16 focuses on the Gender Commission and testimony from women who were victims of sexual violence. The chairperson of the Gender Commission says, “Because always, always in anger and frustration, men use women’s bodies as a terrain of struggle—as a battleground […] Your sexuality was used to strip away your dignity, to undermine your sense of self” (235). Krog provides snippets of testimony from many women who detail horrific rape and sexual violence at the hands of their oppressors.

Alongside all of the testimonies, Krog includes three other fragments—a discussion of the definition of rape, an exploration of how women band together even in bad situations, and commentary on how rape affects men. The chairperson of the Gender Commission notes that, “a man who didn’t break under torture was respected by the police […] But a woman’s refusal to bow down would unleash the wrath of the torturers” (236). Women “have no right” to have that much strength.

While few women willing to speak up about their rapes speak openly, raped men try to avoid the subject, going so far as to avoid the actual word in an effort not to be equated with women. Krog expresses admiration for the women who do give their testimony, as they do so with the understanding that many of the people hearing their testimony will not care about their plight or will find excuses for how the women likely brought their assaults on themselves.

Krog wraps up Part 4 with a short chapter containing only fragments of testimony from three of the mothers of the Guguletu Seven, with no additional commentary or thoughts from Krog. Each woman has her own unique experience to relate about the death of her son, but each concludes with feelings of loss and irrelevance. They wonder at how anyone could kill their children in cold blood or what they did to deserve what happened.