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In 1993 the first step towards transformation in South Africa was taken with a negotiated settlement: a political compromise wherein the political players committed themselves to peaceful change. To this end the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act (Act 34 of 1995) inaugurated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which was conceived of as a socio-political organizational structure that could enable this transition from a divided to a unified society. Specifically, the TRC was mandated to serve a transitional function mediating the tensions and paradoxes inherent in the pursuit of the truth of the apartheid years, the restoration of human dignity to apartheid's victims, the granting of amnesty to some of apartheid's perpetrators and the initiation and containing of the delicate processes of reconciliation within and across fractured communities.
Operationally the TRC was itself a transitional organization with an initial task life of 18 months entailing a process of public expression, narration, witnessing, containing and transforming profound social and individual wounding. This paper looks at how the TRC fared in negotiating these emotional transitions. To this end it is proposed that the TRC be understood as a ‘transitional object’ in a Winnicottian sense. It is this transitionality and the transitional space occupied and created by the TRC in the societal psychic fabric that is explored in the paper. It