Special Hearings — Mental Health Workshop — UNKNOWN

PARTICIPANT: A number of us spoke on this issue. I mean firstly what we were talking about was that in terms of trying to provide greater access to services, that we talked about broadening the base of training. And we referred to the submission made by Saths and others around the (...indistinct) that SISA is trying to adopt. It's not necessary .....
(END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B)

PROF SEEDAT: Part of words of Sim Sinde that it should be part of that profession and that people should be able to accept and remind themselves of the events that have preceded ...(indistinct) through the establishment of various - and museums it's not exactly because we're talking about living memorials so people can access these stories but it should be part of the education system, part of the curricula whereby the manner in which these submissions have been made are translated into stories for children, for adults and I'm not sure what I need to say about that.

CHAIRPERSON: No that's good that's clear.

PROF SEEDAT: I don't know how many Commissioners have actually been to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem but I would imagine we need to take a leaf out of that book because it is done in a manner that is an experience.  You know each person has  an ineffable description of it and it's particular to those people.  I think we need to look at some central treasury where those things can be documented but not documented in the very tendentious manner in which the university archival stuff is being done now.  It ought to be a national monument, it ought not to just say well this is COSATU's role, this was SASO's role and this was the PAC's role and this was the ANC's role, and in order to do that we need to rise above those narrow territorialities in the first instance to create something that is lasting for current and future generations so that on national days like the 21st of March, 16th of June, December 16, we can actually have a place where firstly our people will visit and also definitely it will become a major tourist attraction, it's inevitable given the type of history we have, but we need to think very clearly about it and maybe to look at Robin Island as one site but something more central as well that people can come to and defocus it from the type of parochial narrowness that currently attends these events or these institutions so that everyone can cherish it.  We look at stuff that has happened historically to our nation and we don't have a demonist perpetuation like on the 16th of December everyone goes to Voortrekker and the guys who designed it were very clever because you know at  a particular time the sun will shine on that spot because it's been determined astronomically and it will shine there but then it becomes the chosen people, die volk's affirmation by God.  You know that type of thing.  If we can do it as something that we take account of the atrocities that have been perpetrated against children and women that Bloemfontein wants us not to forget for instance, it must become part of that so this, the continuation of the TRC memory should be ensconced in that type of treasury.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I just for clarity, I agree with - I think it's in three places I think ...(indistinct) it's a symbolic drive in place and part of a symbolic reparation. The other part is more a kind of knowledge base for schools and sort of accessible psychology mental health.

PROF SEEDAT: I think what we were saying in terms of the group discussion was that there needs to be a distillation of what these processes were.  For example, and that's where we brought in the issue of torture, to understand the nature of torture, to understand the processes not only in terms of the counting but in terms of the effects, the implications because it has to be in a sense that this must never ever happen again and we must be able to recognise when it begins to happen again, and if you don't document that process aside from it being just a sort of story that you are telling, this serves as an important reminder of the issues that you need to confront regularly on an ongoing basis.  So that's the second part of it and that doesn't only have to be done by academic institutions.

CHAIRPERSON: Great, any other comments on those comments?

MS MKHIZE: Can I just check something quickly?  Is my understanding clear it's like we are dealing here with two points
1.  The proposal of a national, something similar to a museum and then the second leg is what can be done in schools at different levels?

PROF SEEDAT: Yes I think it's, there's a sort of not academic in the classic sense but  an academic usage of this over our knowledge that we've gained and then also a symbolic sort of accessible side to it.  So it's the same issue with two parts, how we use what we've got really.
 The next point that I think you didn't raise when there was the lobbying process. You spoke about democratising the lobbying process.  Maybe Michael would like to elucidate a bit more on that.

PROF SIMPSON: To be brief we started looking at the issue that there might need to be lobbying for human rights issues, mental health issues in terms of government planning and legislation but that's easy to say and most people would say that's happening already and we know it isn't.  What we looked at was the issues, several issues, one was accountability of the legislative process, be it provincial or national, not only that there has to be and I'll mention it in a minute, ways in which it's made easy access for communities and individuals to lobby and to try and influence planned legislation but also a responsibility on the governmental authorities formulating such policies to be able to prove that they did in fact make themselves accessible and that they did seek out access, not just from a handful of people who professionally represent all of us all the time but they've never actually asked us what we think, but to be genuinely accessible.  We talked about the value surprisingly neglected by government of having toll-free numbers and free-post addresses so that the average person even in a squatter camp who can get access to any public phone or to any public post box and a pen and paper will be able to have access and of course conversely the requirement of Government to make the drafts, the proposals out.  What has also often happened is that too complex a question has been thrown out the community, three people respond and they say we have consulted.  You don't put just a very, either in jargon or political correct terms, a complex programme problem out in four or five words and ask for a response but you say this is how we see the problem at present, these are the sort of things we are looking at and then there's something concrete that all communities can attach to and can say that wouldn't work here because of this, we would need something else because of that.  So it was that issue or both the responsibility that the authorities should prove that they had made meaningful efforts and the use of trivially simply methods like free access to allow ordinary people the access to those mechanisms and to have hearings accessible throughout the country, to have a hearing in Cape Town where people from the north have to spend an annual salary from the average small places to get down to the hearing is not public consultation and similarly to have one in Johannesburg and rely on the people in Cape Town to do the same is not open access.  So there must be other more creative ways made to make it easy for people who are concerned and we hope more and more of our communities will feel free to be concerned and involved, it's not simply a question of using the terms and saying thy were consulted.  I'm being told every night that I chose the new logo for the SABC, I don't remember when anybody asked me about it.