Following the bombing of the Sibasa police station in October 1981, the Vendaland security police persecuted four Lutheran church pastors. This book tells the story of two of these men. The first-person experience of torture of Ndanganeni Peter Phaswana, ably refracted through his capacity for reflection on forgiveness and reparation, offers one lens. The second lens is via the experience of Lillian Tendani Muofhe, as she sought to absorb the murder of her revered husband Isaac Tshifhiwa Muofhe, while mothering her infant daughter. Both accounts hold up a mirror to South African society, present and past, and offer powerful lenses for engaging with the ways in which trauma lodges, sometimes intractably, in the individual unconscious as well as in the collective unconscious of a society.
About the Author: Lillian Tendani Muofhe graduated with a PhD from Michigan State University. Her interests include implementing a constructivist approach to teaching and aligning it with the new reform of outcomes-based education in South Africa, as well as on the relationship between educators' beliefs and experiences and pedagogy. She was assistant Professor at Lake Superior State University in Michigan in the School of Education and later at Adelphi University in New York ( Childhood Education). Born in Venda, South Africa, Lillian came to the USA to escape being hounded by agents of the Venda Security Branch. She was married to Tshifhiwa Muofhe, who was brutally tortured and killed by the apartheid police. Lillian's daughter, Mulanga, was only four months and six days old when her father was murdered. Mulanga is now a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and New York University. Through her activism, Lillian is committed to creating a space and voice for the less fortunate. Her commitment and compassion on helping others is driven by her faith in God. Currently she resides in Venda, South Africa. Peter Ndanganeni grew up in the remote village of Sheshe, Dzimauli and so Phaswana was only able to start his primary education at the age of ten. After passing grade 12, he worked for a year as a private teacher at Khakhu Secondary School, but didn't enjoy the experience--mainly because it involved working within the institution of Bantu Education. In 1975, Phaswana studied theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, and in 1979 he started work as a pastor, later appointed an Executive Secretary of the Northern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa. Later he lectured at the Lutheran Theological Seminary and at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He was elected a bishop of the Central Diocese in 2000. He and his wife Fikile had four children, three boys and a girl, one of whom has since passed on. Michael O'Loughlin was born in Ireland, became a primary school teacher, then immigrated to the United States in 1979 to pursue studies for his PhD. Currently he is a professor at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York, where he teaches both in the School of Education and in the Derner Institute for advanced Psychological Studies. He also has a private practice on Long Island for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. His main intellectual interests concern collective trauma and genocide; mental breakdown and the rights of persons suffering mental disturbances; the emotional lives of children; and the development of healing ways to improve the lives of indigenous people and other victims of colonisation.