Date:            00/05/25

Within the knowledge I have gained about aparthied in South Africa, it upsets me to see all the perpetraitors and bystanders that were involved in such a trecherous ordeal. So many innocent lives were taken because no one took a stand. It bothers me deeply to have to have seen so many not care abd have choosen not to even notice what had happened. It has now ended with the hopes to rebuild a hopeful and peacful South Africa.

C.Caton, Somerville, Ma.
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Date:            00/05/25

I am a senior at Somerville High School.  I took a course called "Facing History" and in this course we stuided South Africa and the TRC.  We have gained awarness of the atrosities that occured during Apartheid.  I would just like to take the time and say the TRC was a good idea in my opinion, and I hope it helped people cope with thier past.  What happened in South Africa was very disturbing, but I hope people are now working together to achieve peace.

Sincerely,
Melissa

Melissa, Somerville, Massachusetts, America
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Date:            00/05/25

My facing history class has been studing the TRC, apartheid, and South Africa in general. Taking this class has shown me how bad the situtation in South Africa was and is. I personally did not know anything about South Africa or it's history until i took this class. I now know and understand how bad the events were.

I never knew or even heard the word apartheid until this year. Now that i do i know about it and understand it, i feel really horrible. The more i read or hear about this the more i can look down at humanity. Apartheid is over but South Africa is still ruined because of high crime.

The purpose of the TRC is a very good one and the TRC is one of the best things that has happened to South Africa. I believe that if someone tells the complete truth and is truely sorry they should be forgiven.

KRISTEN, USA
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Date:            00/05/25

I think that the work of the TRC helps South Africa continully holds the past as a road map for South Africa's future.  I think we must never forget, and should always be thought to kids in school so they know what tragedys South Africa has faced.

I salute Nelson Mandela for his example of what it means to be roconceiled with one's enemies.  He is an example worth emulating.

Vinnie, Somerville, USA 
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Date:            00/05/25

The high school course, Facing History, is a great course to touch upon the big history events that have happened in the past.  We have studied South Africa, equal rights for everyone in the United States, and we also studied the experiences of the Jews in Nazi Germany.  If you take a minute and look at the cause of these events they mostly spring up off of the samething.  Someone or some group wants to have total power.

In South Africa the government treated the blacks horribly.  The law enforcement and white people would beat up the blacks and then kill them.  They did this just because the blacks wanted equal rights.  Now that South Africa has The Truth and Reconcilliatoin Commission many people are paying for the crimes the committed years ago.

Christopher Pitts, Somerville, MA, USA
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Date:            00/05/25

  I am a high school student in my senior year and I currently take a Facing History class. The purpose of taking this course was the desire to learn specific events in history that marked humanity.  However, what I did not know was the numerous issues of today that were left from the damages in history.  Amoung these issues is the South African Reconciliation Act which is, in my opinion, a peaceful but unjust way to reunite the people from a nation that suffered discriminatiom and human's right abuse for so many years.

   The goal of the TRC is to give South Africans a chance to overcome their past and make an alliance.  Without a doubt this procedure was well intented.  The ones who admitted to have opressed Blacks, to have agreed to follow the Apartheid without contradition, and to have committed violence crimes against Blacks were forgiven and even absolved from jail time.  Now, was it fair to the opressed ones?  Black South AFricans never had the chance to let justice punish their opressors.  There wasn't much justice done on their side.

   These people have accomplished a lot through the years, but their past still haunt them.  I give my respect for, after all they were put through, having the strength to reconstruct their people's pride.  Even though not in a legal way,  there is still discrimination and disavantages.

Natalia Martins, Somerville, MA, USA
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Date:            00/05/25

I think what the South Africans government did to the black South Africans was terrible.  killing them and hurting them just because they wanted equal say in their government.  It reminds me of slavery in the 1800's and Civil rights of the 1900's where they didn't have equal rights.  If there are any people out there that would like to know more about what happened to the South African I would recommend seeing the movie A Dry White Season.

I take a class called Facing History which makes you rethink how you feel about certain races and ethnic backgrounds.  We have learned about what has been going on in South Africa and compares it to many different situations in History.  After seeing what the TRC has done it makes me wish that the United States has some people who care so much to make the people in the United States to make the Racists who have committed crimes pay.

James Cassidy, Somerville, USA
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Date:            00/05/25

I never before had a real understanding of South Africa before the Facing History Course.  I knew of apartheid but not about the improsionment of people and about the homelands and what South African blacks had to go throw.  How in South Africa people who were colored had to use passports in South Africa.  I think to myself if we allow people other people in the same manner as in South Africa we will never find equality in the world.

Fernando Estevam, Somerville, Ma 
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Date:            00/05/25

With all of the knowledge I been presented I been amazed of all the things those people put up for several years.  Also, I don't understand how can some people can just stand there and not do anthing about it.  I also, don't understand how the government was so corrupted.  How they can treat those people and especially kids.

Andricson Rivas, Somerville,MA
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Date:            00/05/25

This year in Facing History we have studied many things that have to do with racism and all the problems that come with it.  We have studied problems from the Jews in Germany to the blacks in the United States and what happen in South Africa.  The way the blacks were treated in South Africa was just like how the blacks were treated in the United States.

They were beat up, killed not allowed to do the same things whites were allowed.  Know that South Africa has set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission , it gives blacks a chance to find out why the whites did these to them and give them some sort of peace and closure.

Jonathan O'Connell, Somerville, MA  United States
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Date:            00/05/25

In the beginning of this course I didn't know anything about aparthied or the struggle that black South Africans went through.  You could say I was ignorant.  What I have learned is that freedom shouldn't be taken for granted. I also learned not to stay silent out of fear but fight for justice.

Anonymous, Somerville, USA
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Date:            00/05/25

I think what the South African government did to the black South Africans was horrible.  All the blacks wanted was an equal say in the way the government was run.  The whites were outnumbered and felt they had to use violence.  They killed and tortured many blacks and it was unnecessary.  America had the same problem with slavery and it was because of unequal rights.  There was too much violence and many people didn't even know because the South African government ran everything.  The TRC is really helping South Africa because it is recognizing and reasoning with the problem.

Mike Coneeny, Somerville, USA
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Date:            00/05/25

In my life i have never thought that people would forgive each other for wrongdoing, people would want to demonstrate in symbolic way their commitment to a new kind of future in which human rights abuses will not take place.

Lukson, Lamy, USA
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Date:            00/05/25

In order to glimpse the future, you must know the present, and to know the present you must know the past. We cannot understand today without a knowledge of yesterday. In South Africa, this is especially important because of the terrible atrocities committed in the past. The TRC is a supremely important organization because it helps to reveal the past which, especially in South Africa, must be acknowledged in order to move past the hate and distrust of the past, and present, into a future where everybody is involved and nobody is excluded based on race, creed, or sex. We are the products of our collective pasts, but that does not mean that we must submit to past instances of hate and segregation that has characterized the pasts of so many nations and peoples of the world. The TRC is a first step, an extremely important and successful first step, on the path of enlightenment which surely awaits the people of the world.

anon, Somerville, Massachusetts, United States of America

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