JEFFERY, Anthea (J.)

PERSONAL: Female. Education: University of Witwatersrand, LL.B.; University of Cambridge, LL.M.; University of London, Ph.D. (human rights law).

ADDRESSES: Offıce—c/o South African Institute of Race Relations, P.O. Box 31044, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa 2017.

CAREER: Attorney, author, and consultant. South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, research consultant.

WRITINGS:

(With Simon Bekker) Local Government in UrbanSouth Africa: A Normative Approach, University of Natal, Centre for Social and Development Studies (Durban, South Africa), 1989.

(Transcriber) Forum on Mass Mobilisation, South African Institute on Race Relations (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1991.

Riot Policing in Perspective, South African Institute of Race Relations (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1991.

Conflict at the Crossroads in Bophuthatswana, South African Institute of Race Relations (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1993.

(With Martin Schönteich) Bill of Rights Report 1996/97, South African Institute of Race Relations (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1997.

The Natal Story: Sixteen Years of Conflict, South African Institute of Race Relations (Johannesburg, South Africa), 1997.

The Truth about the Truth Commission, South African Institute for Race Relations (Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Anthea Jeffery writes against the backdrop of South Africa's volatile late-twentieth-century history, refusing to shy away from subjects that are politically charged or unpopular. R. W. Johnson, in a review of The Truth about the Truth Commission for the London Review of Books, stated that "no book in recent South African history has attracted such venom." Of Jeffery, he remarked, "she has been accused of wanting to defend the apartheid past, of having a desire to hurt and humiliate black people . . . yet none of her attackers has dared to take issue with her on the basis of fact or evidence—Jeffery's scholarship is beyond reproach."

In The Truth about the Truth Commission Jeffery tackles the five-volume report issued by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a body established to help unify South Africans in the wake of revelations regarding years of killings and other human-rights violations. Jeremy Sarkin suggested in a piece for the South African Sunday Times that Jeffery's work is less than objective, commenting that "she has set out to negate the findings of the TRC for political reasons." He went on to assert that "Jeffery simply repeats the propaganda she and other apologists for the former regime have been promoting for years." Johnson, however, remarked that, "as Jeffery shows, the TRC repeatedly sought to override or ignore the findings of far more thorough judicial investigations, apparently on the basis of sheer political prejudice." While a political consensus seems impossible, Jeffery's book clearly incites debate.

Jeffery's earlier work, The Natal Story: Sixteen Years of Conflict, covers multiple interpretations of the regional conflict from various points of view. Writing for the South African Institute of Race Relations Web site, Graham McIntosh referred to the book as "a personal triumph for the author and a huge achievement for her team," also reflecting that it "is about one of the saddest and most depressing periods in the history of our country. For that reason alone this is a vitally necessary contribution." About Jeffery, the article said she "is not a judge, nor even an analyst . . . she has learnt not to jump to conclusions but slowly and carefully marshal the evidence, ask some questions, and leave judgement to the court, which is the reader."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Business Day (South Africa), October 3, 2003, Sanchia Temkin and Chantelle Benjamin, "Unfair Discrimination Law Puts New Spin on Equality."

London Review of Books, October 14, 1999, R. W. Johnson, "Why There Is No Easy Way to Dispose of Painful History," p. 9.

Sunday Times (South Africa), August 1, 1999, Jeremy Sarkin, review of The Truth about the Truth Commission.

ONLINE

American Bar Association Web site,http://www.abanet.org/ (July 26, 2004), review of The Truth about the Truth Commission.

South African Institute of Race Relations Web site,http://www.sairr.org.za/ (July 26, 2004), Graham McIntosh, "The Natal Story—Depressing yet Hugely Refreshing."*