Race And Reconciliation
When Calvin College history professor William VanVugt got advance copies of his book "Race and Reconciliation in South Africa," one of the first people he gave one to was South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
The act was appropriate on two levels. For Tutu headed up South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And he wrote the forward to VanVugt's book, which is a collection of essays from a conference VanVugt and South African colleague Daan Cloete organized in South Africa in 1999.
In the forward Tutu said: "My experiences as chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions were both painful and hopeful. Even though we have a long way to go to achieve justice and true reconciliation, it is my belief that though a better understanding of racism and injustice in South Africa -- and a better understanding of what Ssouth Africans have achieved in the past several years -- we can approach the future with hope and the determination that all our people will live in peace and harmony. This book makes a contribution to that understanding, and I thank William VanVugt, Daan Cloete, and the other contributors for their work."
VanVugt was able to hand the book to Tutu personally last week when he flew to Atlanta to meet with Tutu at Emory University. It was, he says, "a thrill." During their conversation together Tutu thanked VanVugt for the book and encouraged him to continue to pursue academic inquiry into South Africa's past, present and future.
VanVugt intends to do just that next month when he flies to South Africa for a conference at the University of the Western Cape (where Tutu is chancellor) on race and reconciliation. His book will be officially launched in South Africa at that conference, which is expected to be the subject of significant South African media coverage.
"The theme of the book," VanVugt says, "is hopeful. There is a long history of racial oppression in South Africa unlike any other country. And the essays in the book look at that history from a variety of perspectives. But South Africa has emerged with a great deal of hope and promise. In fact, South African is becoming a model for other countries who struggle with race. Tutu has been to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, helping those countries heal. A decade ago nobody would have dared dream about a South Africa with so much promise."
VanVugt's book brings together papers presented at a January 1999 conference that VanVugt and Cloete organized in Cape Town, thanks to a grant to VanVugt from the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship. That conference was titled "Race, Ethnicity and Reconciliation in South Africa: A Multicultural and Comparative Dialogue."
The resulting book, says VanVugt, is likely to find audiences not just in South Africa. There is a wide community of academics in North America who study South Africa. Those audiences are already interested in the subject matter of the book. And, says, VanVugt, like Northern Ireland and the Middle East, North America also has room for improvement when it comes to race and reconciliation.