The TRC’s individual-level apologies left apartheid’s architects unpunished and victims uncompensated

Evidence

But they also produced, if not a numbing effect, certainly the public disposition especially among whites to equate perpetrators on both sides, identifying wrongs done by street activists and liberating forces with the intense abuses of human sacrifice touched upon above. It left the bereaving families, often poor and almost invariably black, whose loved ones were horribly killed or maimed, with little or no restitution beyond an individual apology in a public forum, however heartfelt. And perhaps above all, it left the leaders of apartheid’s worst atrocities, its architects and arbiters – not least former President P. W. Botha, the quintessential symbol of apartheid abuse, aggression, and arrogance – pretty much completely untouched. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1576

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to the sacrifice article’s theme of ritualized atonement that fails to redistribute power — here the confessional TRC as a purification rite that exempts the actual architects.
• XREF: connects to: Ritualized public apologies let leaders shift blame to subordinates without cost; Only 12 percent of amnesty requests to the TRC were granted; South Africa’s TRC traded amnesty for truth, not remorse or atonement — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 2091

Broader Connections

• Ritualized public apologies let leaders shift blame to subordinates without cost #corroborates (0.78)
• Only 12 percent of amnesty requests to the TRC were granted #expands (0.75)