Ancestors, rain spirits and reconciliation: evoking healing through ritual and culture

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Taking into account criticisms of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this article examines David Lan's play Desire as a theatrical exemplar of the use of culturally appropriate processes as a means of bringing about healing and reconciliation. It is suggested that metaphor and symbol have an important role to play in such processes. Truth and reconciliation are trenchant themes in the play, which is set in a village in the Zambezi valley immediately after the War of Liberation in the early 1980s and climaxes in a scene of confession. The differing attitudes to the war and the complexity of responses to such a life-threatening situation are examined through two primary cultural devices, namely a people's court (indaba) and the evocation of the ancestors through ritual. The argument focuses on the value of culturally appropriate metaphors as a catalyst for the characters in the play to engage more deeply with the truth of their situation and to find the ongoing courage to work for social justice.