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order penegra Johnson is right that we have very different reasons for being disappointed with the TRC. But I am not sure he understands the reasons. He is upset that the TRC was selective in the choice of perpetrators it hauled into the limelight and that as a result the public learned nothing new. The basis of my critique is different. Because the TRC focused on perpetrators and overlooked the beneficiaries of mass violations of rights abuses ??? such as the pass laws and forced expulsions ??? it allowed the vast majority of white South Africans to go away thinking that they had little to do with these atrocities. Indeed, most did learn nothing new. The alternative would have been for the TRC to show white South Africans that no matter what their political views ??? whether they were for, against or indifferent to apartheid ??? they were all its beneficiaries, whether it was a matter of the residential areas where they lived, the jobs they held, the schools they went to, the taxes they did or did not pay, or the cheap labour they employed. Because the TRC was not a legislative organ, because its decisions ??? except on amnesty ??? did not have the force of law, it did not face the same political restrictions as the negotiators at Kempton Park. At the same time, the TRC had access to state resources and was beamed into South African living rooms in prime time. It should have educated ordinary citizens, black and white, about everyday apartheid and its impact on the life chances and circumstances of generations of South Africans. This would have brought home to one and all the rightness and necessity of social justice.